PAKISTAN:The mood of confrontation in Pakistan intensified yesterday when Benazir Bhutto threatened to lead a mass rally to the capital, Islamabad, unless president Pervez Musharraf met her demands to step down from the army and restore constitutional rule.
Ms Bhutto's gambit poses the first significant challenge to Gen Musharraf since he imposed emergency rule last Saturday. It also coincided with toughening rhetoric from the US, which helped negotiate her return from exile three weeks ago.
A White House official warned yesterday that Washington's patience was not "neverending" and it expected Gen Musharraf to return to constitutional rule "soon".
"They need to release the people that they've arrested, they need to stop beating people in the streets, they need to restore press freedom, and they need to get back on the path to democracy soon - now," said US national security council spokesman Gordon Johndroe.
Ms Bhutto has given Gen Musharraf until tomorrow to comply with her demands. If not, she will stage a mass rally at a public park in Rawalpindi in defiance of government orders. Then, next Tuesday, she will stage a "long march" from Lahore to Islamabad - two days before the November 15th deadline by when Gen Musharraf had earlier promised to remove his uniform.
Until now, protests have been led by lawyers infuriated at the firing of their chief justice, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, who yesterday remained under house arrest in Islamabad. Baton-wielding riot police have moved swiftly and sometimes brutally to crush the dissent, firing teargas and arresting thousands.
The protests flagged yesterday, with minor scuffles in Lahore.
Ms Bhutto's newfound steel edge could change the dynamic. She urged supporters to reach Rawalpindi tomorrow "at all costs". "We can't work for dictatorship. We can work for democracy," she told a news conference in Islamabad. "We are talking about the future of Pakistan as a modern nation."
In a possible prelude to the showdown, teargas was used on about 400 Bhutto activists outside parliament yesterday, moments after government legislators inside the building had rubberstamped Gen Musharraf's emergency rule.
The demonstrators retreated through the choking clouds of gas chanting "Benazir! Benazir!" and "Down with the emergency!".
Until yesterday Ms Bhutto had played a careful game, issuing withering verbal condemnations of Gen Musharraf but refraining from calling her party, which enjoys countrywide support, on to the streets.
Powersharing talks between the two have spared her People's Party the worst of the government crackdown. While the leaders of almost every other party have been jailed since Saturday, Ms Bhutto and her top officials have avoided the purge.
Even now she is keeping open the possibility of co-habitation with Gen Musharraf. He could "open the door" again if he "revives the constitution, retires as chief of army staff, and sticks to the schedule of holding elections", she said.
The government promised a harsh reception for the march. The mayor of Rawalpindi said authorities would take action "according to the law".