Musharraf appoints army successor

Tuesday, 2 October 2007

Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf has named his successor to take over as army chief, the military says.

The appointee is former head of intelligence Lt Gen Ashfaq Pervez Kiani, military spokesman Maj Gen Waheed Arshad told the BBC.

Gen Musharraf will resign as head of the army if he wins presidential elections on Saturday, his lawyers say.

Opposition parties say his candidacy is illegal and that he has broken previous promises to resign as army chief.

Lt Gen Kiani has been appointed deputy chief of army staff and will take over the top post when it falls vacant, the military says.

It is not clear when that will be.

Gen Musharraf's lawyers told the Supreme Court last week that he would stand down as army chief "soon after election and before taking the oath of office as president".

Lt Gen Kiani headed Pakistan's notorious Inter-Services Intelligence agency from 2004 until last month.

He took part in secret talks recently on a possible power sharing deal between President Musharraf and former PM Benazir Bhutto.

His appointment will be closely watched in Washington which has been putting pressure on Pakistan to do more in the US-led "war on terror".

Boycott

The BBC's M Ilyas Khan in Karachi says Lt Gen Kiani earned Gen Musharraf's confidence when he headed the investigation into two attempts on the president's life in December 2003, bringing a number of suspects to trial in a secret military court.

News of his appointment came as scores of opposition MPs resigned from Pakistan's national parliament and provincial assemblies in protest at Saturday's presidential election.

They insist that President Pervez Musharraf is ineligible to stand.

Correspondents say that the resignations make it even more certain that Gen Musharraf will win the vote.

Members who resigned from the assemblies on Tuesday were drawn mainly from the alliance of Islamic parties, the MMA, and the PML-N party of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

"We are handing over the resignations today because we consider the election of the president is illegal and unconstitutional," one leading MP, Liaquat Baloch, said, the AFP news agency reports.

The MPs hope the resignations will make the presidential election be seen to be meaningless.

"This is the first step to discredit the election process," said former cricket star and MP Imran Khan, whose party is part of the opposition APDM alliance.

The country's biggest party is the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. It is not taking part in the boycott.

Meanwhile two rival candidates for Saturday's election have filed fresh petitions in the Supreme Court against Gen Musharraf's candidacy.

Last Friday the court dismissed a number of petitions, in a move seen as a major victory for the president.

The president is elected by MPs from the national assembly and Pakistan's four provincial assemblies.

The petitions filed by lawyers representing two candidates standing against President Musharraf, retired Judge Wajihuddin Ahmed and Makhdoom Amin - vice chairman of the PPP - say that the president is not eligible to stand while also remaining head of the army.