Will Musharraf doff his uniform – the 10 billion dollar question!

Yes… the 10 billion dollar ally.  Will he or won’t he?  And to be or not to be is the question yet again.

From the Australian:  Bruce Loudon, South Asia correspondent | November 23, 2007

PAKISTAN’S Supreme Court last night dismissed the final challenge to President Pervez Musharraf’s re-election, paving the way for him to quit as army chief within days, as cricket legend Imran Khan led opposition calls to boycott the next election following his release from prison.

The court, packed with judges loyal to General Musharraf since he declared a state of emergency on November 3, had already dismissed five other challenges to his victory in a presidential election last month.

“I can confirm that the last petition has been dismissed,” said court spokesman Arshad Munir.

Opposition parties are at loggerheads over whether to boycott the January 8 election and how to meet a Monday deadline to nominate candidates.

After Mian Nawaz Sharif, the popular prime minister deposed by President Pervez Musharraf eight years ago, conceded he had failed to persuade Pakistan People’s Party leader Benazir Bhutto to join the boycott, Mr Khan urged a unified front.

He said he had spoken to Mr Sharif and a senior aide in Ms Bhutto’s party on a joint boycott of the poll. But Mr Khan admitted he would have to reconsider his options if they could not agree.

The former Pakistan cricket captain was released late yesterday from a high-security jail where he had begun a hunger strike.

He was arrested last week and charged under anti-terror laws after emerging from hiding to join a rally against General Musharraf’s emergency rule.

“What we want from all political parties is a total boycott of the election because these are fraudulent elections,” he said.

He added: “There is a strain of thought in some parties that an election campaign could be used to discredit Musharraf, but I think they are making a mistake. Rather than discrediting him by participating in elections, we should boycott them to discredit him.”

Mr Khan is the only member of parliament in the Movement for Justice party he founded.

“This is time to launch a movement against Musharraf because everyone is united against him. All he is trying to do is to cling to power. Musharraf must resign … I am confident Musharraf will have to go,” he said.

The Government yesterday eased the country’s state of emergency by announcing the release of more than 5000 lawyers, opposition party workers and human rights activists, including Mr Khan.

The verdict and the releases allowed General Musharraf to placate international pressure over the crisis in his country.

The Commonwealth yesterday debated whether to suspend Pakistan from the 53-nation grouping. Islamabad urged Commonwealth foreign ministers convening in Uganda to delay a decision on suspending it and to send a delegation to Pakistan.

With many leaders incarcerated since the emergency was declared, most of the opposition parties are in no position to name their candidates for the 1070 seats in the national and provincial assemblies to be contested.

Only the ruling, Musharraf-supporting branch of the Pakistan Muslim League, apparently with prior information about the election date, was in a position to nominate candidates in all seats, analysts said.

While the 5000 people walked free, judges purged from the Supreme Court after refusing to endorse the state of emergency remained under house arrest.

Police padlocked the front gate of deposed chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry and surrounded his Islamabad home with barbed wire when he tried to leave it for the first time in more than a fortnight.

The move came after a senior official said all the deposed Supreme Court judges were free to leave their homes in the so-called Judge’s Colony in Islamabad and return to their villages.

Presidential spokesman Rashid Qureshi had said earlier that General Musharraf had pledged to hand over the reins of the 500,000-strong army “immediately” after his election victory was ratified.

Major-General Qureshi did not give a day, but Pakistan’s Attorney-General said General Musharraf would quit the army “by Saturday or Sunday” assuming that the Supreme Court rejected the final challenge.

Additional reporting: AFP