Musharraf promises election in 2002

Military ruler General Pervez Musharraf said on Monday he would hold national elections in 2002, but gave no date for the vote. “We will hold provincial and national elections in 2002”, Reuters news agency quoted him as saying at an award distribution ceremony of the All Pakistan Newspapers Society. Musharraf said that before the elections he would put in place a system of “checks and balances” in the form of local councils he plans to create by mid-2001 in a plan for devolution of power to the grass-roots level. Musharraf had resisted international demands to give a timetable for national elections, but has agreed to follow a Supreme Court ruling last May that upheld his coup and asked him to complete his reforms and hand over to an elected government within three years from the date of his coup on 12 October 1999.