ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN — Pakistan’s Supreme Court, newly stacked with allies of President Pervez Musharraf, dismissed most of the challenges to his re-election Monday, but opposition leaders rejected the ruling as engineered and illegitimate, the latest controversy in the country’s ongoing political crisis.
Deliberating for just less than three hours, the judges, many of them handpicked by Musharraf, struck down the five main challenges to his re-election. The sixth and final petition will be heard Thursday, though that case was also expected to be dismissed.
Pakistani opposition parties had asserted Musharraf was ineligible to seek re-election last month while also serving as chief of the army. The Supreme Court was scheduled to hear challenges in the case before Musharraf fired several justices and proclaimed emergency rule Nov. 3.
After the court clears all of the challenges to his re-election, Musharraf has promised to resign as head of the country’s military and become a civilian president.
On Monday, the president also said he was asking the country’s electoral commission to call parliamentary elections for Jan. 8.
Opposition leaders have said the elections would be deeply flawed and unfair if conducted during emergency rule. Hundreds of political leaders remain jailed, and independent TV news stations have been blacked out.
In a rare public appearance, Musharraf insisted that he was the only leader who could safeguard the country as Islamic extremists increase attacks in the northwest.
“I could have said thank you and walked away. But this was not the right approach because I cannot watch this country go down in front of me after so many achievements and such an economic turnaround,” he said at a groundbreaking ceremony for a new highway and bridge project in the southern city of Karachi.
Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte held talks with Musharraf over the weekend to persuade him to end emergency rule, restore the constitution and free political opponents. But there was no indication Musharraf would bend to the growing U.S. pressure.
In Karachi, U.S. Ambassador Anne Patterson met with opposition leader and former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who has aborted U.S.-backed plans to form a political alliance with Musharraf. The two are no longer speaking.
Bhutto said she was frustrated that the Bush administration had not made lifting the emergency a condition of continuing aid to Pakistan.
