Bush Puts Pressure on Pakistani President As Bhutto Issues March Ultimatum

George Bush finally intervened in the Pakistan crisis yesterday, making a phone-call to his ally Pervez Musharraf to press the president to hold planned elections and to step down from the army.

The American president, who had not contacted General Musharraf directly since he established emergency law on Saturday, told a press conference: "You can't be the president [of Pakistan] and the head of the military at the same time. I had a very frank discussion with him."

His rebuke, albeit mild, came as the mood of confrontation in Pakistan intensified when Benazir Bhutto threatened to lead a mass rally to the capital, Islamabad, unless Gen Musharraf met her demands to step down from the army and restore constitutional rule.

Ms Bhutto's gambit poses the first significant challenge to Gen Musharraf since he imposed emergency rule. It also coincided with the toughening rhetoric from the US, which had helped negotiate the former prime minister's return from exile three weeks ago.

Mr Bush has faced demands from Democratic congressmen to cut aid to Pakistan. He has also been under pressure from the US media, which has contrasted his harsh words for the Burmese junta with his soft approach to Gen Musharraf.

But, speaking at a press conference with the French president Niçolas Sarkozy, Mr Bush recounted his conversation with Gen Musharraf: "My message was that we believe strongly in elections, and that you ought to have elections soon, and you need to take off your uniform."

The US deputy secretary of state, John Negroponte, softened Mr Bush's rebuke further with a statement to the House foreign affairs committee in which he disagreed with Gen Musharraf's tactics but described him as "an indispensable ally" in the US battle against terrorism.

Ms Bhutto has given a deadline to Gen Musharraf of tomorrow to comply with her demands. If not she will stage a mass rally at a public park in Rawalpindi in defiance of government orders; then, on Tuesday, she will stage a "long march" from Lahore to Islamabad - two days before the November 15 date by which Gen Musharraf had earlier promised to leave the army.Until now protests have been led by lawyers infuriated at the sacking of their chief justice, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, who remains under house arrest in Islamabad.

Baton-wielding riot police have moved swiftly and sometimes brutally to crush the dissent, firing teargas and arresting thousands. The protest flagged yesterday, with minor scuffles in Lahore. Ms Bhutto's newfound steel edge could change the dynamic. She urged supporters to reach Rawalpindi tomorrow "at all costs". "We can't work for dictatorship. We can work for democracy," she told an Islamabad news conference. "We're talking about the future of Pakistan as a modern nation."

In a possible prelude to the showdown, teargas was used on 400 Bhutto activists outside parliament yesterday, moments after government legislators inside the building had rubber-stamped Gen Musharraf's emergency rule.

The demonstrators retreated through the choking clouds of gas chanting "Benazir! Benazir!" and "Down with the emergency!"

Until yesterday Ms Bhutto had played a careful game, issuing verbal condemnations of Gen Musharraf but refraining from calling her party, which has countrywide support, on to the streets.

Power-sharing talks between the two have spared her People's party the worst of the government crackdown. While the leaders of virtually every other party have been jailed since Saturday, Ms Bhutto and her top officials have avoided the purge.

Even now she is keeping open the possibility of cohabitation with Gen Musharraf. He could "open the door" again if he "revives the constitution, retires as chief of army staff, and sticks to the schedule of holding elections", she said.

Still, some analysts detected a change. "She has come to the conclusion that if she doesn't put genuine full pressure [on him], Gen Musharraf will not lose his uniform and the political parties have no future, including herself," said Talat Masood, an analyst and retired army general. "The Americans have also realised that Gen Musharraf has a rapidly diminishing utility. And he's reaching a point where he is more a problem than a solution."

Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, a senior member of Gen Musharraf's inner circle, told the Guardian that he expected the emergency would be lifted in "two to three weeks".

The route for Ms Bhutto's planned "long march" is highly significant. Lahore is the capital of the Punjab, Pakistan's most populous province and the area from which most of the army comes. A mass road rally into Lahore was a high point of Justice Chaudhry's street campaign against Gen Musharraf last spring. The government promised a harsh reception for the march.