General Pervez Musharraf may take oath as "Mr" President on Saturday as all legal hurdles in his second 5-year term stand removed. The Supreme Court on Thursday dismissed Dr Zahoor Mehdi's petition on the ground that he had not filed his nomination papers as a presidential candidate in the Election Commission in accordance with the law laid down in the Constitution for the President's election.
After dismissing the last petition linked with presidential poll, Chief Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar asked the Attorney General to provide election results to the court. Malik Mohammad Qayyum said that the government had already submitted the results in the court according to which General Musharraf obtained 57 percent of the total votes of the electoral college and 98 percent of the votes cast in the poll.
Later talking to newsmen, Qayyum said that all petitions against Musharraf's re-election had been dismissed. He hoped that the apex court would vacate its stay order on Friday and allow the Election Commission to issue notification of the successful candidate.
Qayyum said the Federal Government would also issue its notification calling upon General Musharraf to take oath as President for another five-year term. He hoped that Chief Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar would administer the oath of office to the President on Saturday, November 24 at a ceremony in Aiwan-e-Sadr. He said there should be no doubt that General Musharraf would relinquish the charge of Chief of Army Staff before taking the oath to complete transition to democracy.
An 11-member bench of the Supreme Court headed by Justice Javed Iqbal had started hearing of several petitions against President Musharraf's candidature in uniform on September 29. The bench had allowed the Election Commission to go ahead with the scheduled polls on October 6, 2007 but stayed the issuance of notification of the successful candidate till a decision on these petitions.
The court was still in the process of hearing these petitions, when Chief of Army Staff promulgated the 3rd November Provisional Constitution Order, sacked all judges of the Supreme Court and four High Courts and clamped emergency rule.
A 10-member bench comprising judges who took oath under the PCO was constituted on Monday, November 19 to hear these petitions. However, the five main challengers to Musharraf's candidacy declined to argue their case before the new bench headed by Chief Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar.
The court dismissed these petitions for not being prosecuted. The bench which finally heard these petitions comprised Chief Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar, Justice Mohammad Nawaz Abbasi, Justice Faqir Mohammad Khokhar, Justice Ejazul Hassan, Justice Mohammad Qaim Jan Khan, Justice Mohammad Moosa K Leghari, Justice Chaudhry Ejaz Yusuf, Justice Akhtar Shabbir and Justice Zia Pervez.