ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Lawmakers on Saturday overwhelmingly endorsed a new five-year presidential term for Gen. Pervez Musharraf, according to unofficial results, but the legitimacy of the vote has yet to be decided by the Supreme Court.
The lopsided balloting, held simultaneously by Pakistan’s national parliament and four provincial assemblies, was denounced as a sham by Musharraf’s opponents. The government praised it as a show of orderly democracy.
The supreme court is to rule this month on whether Musharraf is eligible under the constitution to seek a new term in office while serving as head of Pakistan’s powerful military, a role he has promised to relinquish only once his victory is sealed. Opponents still hope to see the 64-year-old leader retroactively disqualified.
That left Musharraf and his allies celebrating an uneasy triumph. “It’s the day of the general — apparently,” said Adeel Sabir, an anchor on the Dawn television news channel.
Despite an opposition boycott, the general himself sought to portray the vote as an unqualified show of support.
“A majority, a vast majority, have voted for me,” he said in a brief appearance in which he wore civilian clothes rather than his army uniform.
Although the formal outcome is legally on hold, the balloting was seen as a watershed in Musharraf’s months-long struggle to remain in power despite an outpouring of public antipathy.
The Pakistani leader is considered a key American ally in the fight against the Taliban and al-Qaida, and events here are being watched closely by the Bush administration. Musharraf has sent troops to battle Islamic militants who have found shelter in Pakistan’s tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, but that military push is foundering.
Saturday’s vote took place under tight security that included phalanxes of riot police and barbed-wire barricades around the national and provincial assembly buildings. But protesters nonetheless managed to stage small demonstrations near the voting venues.
Outside the regional parliament in the restive North-West Frontier Province, lawyers in their trademark black suits and starched shirts burned an effigy of the general in uniform and pelted a police armored personnel carrier with rocks. Police fired tear gas to scatter them.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
