FOCUS: Opposition leader accuses Musharraf of seeking to delay elections

ISLAMABAD, July 18 Kyodo

The leader of Pakistan's parliamentary opposition accuses President Gen. Pervez Musharraf of seeking to capitalize on a surge in militancy to create a pretext to delay elections due later this year.

''An environment is being created to prepare the public that it is not possible to hold the elections,'' Maulana Fazal-ur-Rehman said in an interview Tuesday with Kyodo News in Islamabad.

Rehman is president of the right-wing Jamiat-ulema-Islam and secretary general of Mutteheda Majlis-e-Amal, a religious alliance which governs the two provinces of Baluchistan and North West Frontier Province bordering Afghanistan.

In the nearly hour-long interview, Rehman talked about the recently ended siege at Islamabad's Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque, compound, a crackdown on Islamic militants in tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, and the forthcoming elections.

Rehman, whose delegation had held talks with Red Mosque clerics Maulana Abdul Aziz and Abdul Rashid Ghazi, claimed that the clerics were surrounded by people who blocked negotiations and made sure that the negotiations did not succeed.

He declined to identify the individuals who thwarted the negotiations.

Many people in Pakistan believe that intelligence agencies were fully aware of the activities of the clerics but allowed them to continue their agitation for six months.

He accused the government of ordering the storming of the mosque last week to create a pretext for launching an operation against religious schools and tribal areas where Islamic militancy is growing.

In the wake of the Red Mosque operation in which at least 103 people were killed, Musharraf has sent troops to turbulent tribal areas and districts of NWFP where Taliban militants are gaining strength.

In Swat, Malakand, and Dir in NWFP, local clerics and their followers have banned music and video shops and ordered men to grow beards. It is widely feared that the army is poised to launch an operation against the militants in these areas.

''No operation is to take place in NWFP,'' Rehman said.

Rehman said that he personally believed that Musharraf was looking for pretexts to postpone the general election so that he could get elected for another five-year term from the present assembly.

''If there will be no elections, he (Musharraf) will get votes from the present assemblies. He will do everything he can to remain president,'' he said.

Under the Constitution, the president is elected by the national and provincial assemblies. The terms of both the president and present assemblies expire on Nov. 15.

''The army is not ready to give up power. Musharraf is not ready to give up power. He is trying to make deals with different political parties to get reelected from the present or new assemblies,'' he said.

He said that his alliance would never cut a deal with Musharraf and, according to his sources, even the Pakistan Peoples Party of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto is having second thoughts about cooperating with Musharraf.

About the possibility of a greater alliance of opposition parties, Rehman said that the MMA had been asking the PPP to enter into an alliance against Musharraf for the last two years. It was still trying to persuade the PPP to join hands with the MMA and other opposition parties, he said.

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