Musharraf 'cleared for election'
Five legal challenges against General Pervez Musharraf's presidential candidature thrown out by Pakistan's supreme court
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Monday, 19, Nov 2007 01:47
Pakistan president General Pervez Musharraf has been effectively cleared for election after the country's top court threw out five legal challenges.
Gen Musharraf was voted in as the president of Pakistan at the beginning of October, but confirmation was held up by complaints over the eligibility of his candidature.
Critics claimed that he could not be elected as the country's president while remaining head of its armed forces, a stance rejected today by the supreme court.
It turned away five out of six legal challenges to October's election, the last of which is expected to be knocked back later this week.
"Five petitions have been dismissed," attorney general Malik Qayyum said amid heightened security in Islamabad. "One is pending and it will be heard on Thursday."
Gen Musharraf's decision to declare emergency rule on November 3rd has been heavily linked to suspicions that the supreme court, then headed by hostile chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, would rule against him.
Attention in Pakistan is now expected to turn to parliamentary elections scheduled for January 8th, by which time it is hoped Gen Musharraf's emergency powers will have been rescinded and his army uniform gathering dust.
This weekend US deputy secretary of state John Negroponte urged Pakistan to end emergency rule, while opposition figurehead Benazir Bhutto adopted softer language after earlier indicating she would never work alongside Gen Musharraf.
The general arrived in power in a bloodless coup in 1999.