President Pervez Musharraf in a US press interview on Saturday, defended imposing a state of emergency in his country, vowing that a "better and stronger" Pakistan would emerge despite recent travails.
In an interview to be published on Sunday, one day after he was to lift the state of emergency in his country, the former general said he regretted having to shed his military title, but said he did so for the national good. "On a personal note, I loved my uniform," he said in the interview to appear on Sunday (today) in the Washington Post and the Newsweek magazine.
"From the national point of view, I don't think there is a difference," he said. "I think the overall situation will be better and stronger. The army is being managed by a chief of staff dedicated to the job, and I will be president of Pakistan, and if the two are totally in harmony, the situation is better," Musharraf said in the interview posted on the Post's website. President Musharraf said he would ensure clean balloting in his country next month.
"We are going to have fair and transparent elections," he said, although he refused to say whether he would endorse a constitutional amendment to allowing former prime minister and rival Benazir Bhutto to serve a third term.
Musharraf drew international criticism for imposing a state of emergency on November 3 as he faced a raft of legal challenges to his October re-election, a move that saw thousands of people rounded up and put in jail. But he said in the interview that while he was prepared to lift the emergency rule he imposed last month, he would not reinstate judges who opposed him.
"Why should they be restored? New judges are there. They will never be restored," he said. In the interview, he also blamed the Western media for many of his recent political problems. "The problem with the West and your media is your obsession with democracy, civil liberties, and human rights," he said. "Who has built democratic institutions in Pakistan? I have done it in the last eight years. We empowered the people and the women of Pakistan. We allowed freedom of expression," said Musharraf.