PAKISTAN:A top US diplomat has arrived in Pakistan hoping to save Pakistan's "derailed" political process by urging President Pervez Musharraf to lift emergency rule and end state repression.
"Our message is that we want to work with the government and people of Pakistan and . . . put the political process back on track as soon as possible," said the deputy secretary of state, John Negroponte, yesterday as he left Africa for Islamabad.
The two-week-old emergency rule has prompted unprecedented international criticism of Gen Musharraf, who offered a few sops to the US diplomat in the hours before he arrived.
The opposition leader Benazir Bhutto and the country's top human rights campaigner, Asma Jahangir, were released from house arrest and two independent television stations were allowed back on air.
Gen Musharraf has pressed ahead with plans for a general election by January 9th, swearing in a caretaker government in a low-key ceremony at the presidential palace. "I take pride in the fact that, being a man in uniform, I have actually introduced the essence of democracy in Pakistan, whether anyone believes it or not," he said.
However the composition of the interim administration - headed by a Musharraf ally Mohammedmian Soomro and packed with loyalists - only fuelled suspicions that the poll will be neither free nor fair.
Hours after being released from house arrest in Lahore, Ms Bhutto called for an opposition election boycott. "Do we want to deny this nation its true legitimate leadership and make way . . . for extremist forces?" she asked. "The west's interests lie in a democratic Pakistan."
It was not clear if she would be able to meet Mr Negroponte, who only last week described Gen Musharraf as "indispensable".
Although the US is calling for free elections, it has largely ignored the plight of the deposed chief justice, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry.
With hundreds of lawyers still in jail, students have taken up the protest. About 3,000 people rallied in Lahore, chanting anti-Musharraf slogans and cheering Imran Khan, the former cricketer and politician arrested on Tuesday and charged under anti-terrorism laws.