Musharraf makes overtures to US, with local polls

Clinton, due to make a brief visit to Islamabad on Saturday at the end of a five-day visit to India, came closer than ever in the past to explicitly blaming Islamabad for violence in the Himalayan region.

“I believe there are elements within the Pakistani government that have supported those engaged in violence in Kashmir,” Clinton said.

Musharraf said he would ask Clinton to play a role “in the background” for a settlement in Kashmir because India had rejected suggestions for mediation by Washington.

Significantly, Musharraf’s announcement today to hold local elections later this year comes two days before Clinton is scheduled to visit Pakistan, where he is expected to press the Army chief for a time-frame for general elections.

Musharraf has so far ignored international pressure to return Pakistan to democracy quickly, saying the task will require more time and that he was not interested in returning the present crop of politicians to power.

Addressing a press conference today, he said the first round of local elections would be held between December 2000 and May 2001. A second round of local elections — at the district level — would be held in July 2001, effectively putting municipal governments back in power.

“We want to empower the impoverished, the people at the grass-roots level,” he said in Islamabad.

“We will move step by step to provincial and federal (elections),” he said.

Before holding the local elections, the Army-led Government says it wants to revise a 20-year-old electoral list and make new identity cards that cannot easily be forged.

Musharraf’s plan for staggered local elections also involves restructuring the political system to give a greater voice to village councils, which will be chosen in the first round of voting.

Village councils would have 26 seats, including 10 reserved for women, four for peasants and workers, and one for minority religious groups. The 66-member district councils would include 50 general seats that men and women could run for, 10 seats reserved for women, three for workers and peasants, and three for minorities.

PAK DAY: Earlier in the day, Pakistan displayed several surface-to-surface Shaheen and Ghauri missiles in a parade marking Pakistan Day, as President Mohammad Rafiq Tarar vowed Pakistan would continue to support the freedom struggle in Kashmir.

Musharraf was among the Government officials present at the parade where the Shaheen II ballistic missile was displayed for the first time. The missile has a range of up to 2,500 km. Tarar praised his nation’s military might, taking pride in its nuclear capability. “Not only is this country surviving, it has become a nuclear state and the first Muslim nuclear state,” he said.

“Our defence forces have gallantly fought an enemy many times their size. God willing, in the future too, they will inflict a befitting reply to the enemy,” he said.