'Another Ruse to Rule'

Nearly three years after he took power in a coup, Pakistan's General Pervez Musharraf will appear on national television tonight to announce a referendum that is expected to endorse him as president for another five years.

He will sit, as he has done before, beneath a portrait of Mohammad Ali Jinnah, Pakistan's founding father, who believed he was creating a democratic, tolerant Muslim nation on the subcontinent.

But 55 years after independence, Pakistan is still a long way short of achieving Jinnah's vision. Close aides say that ever since the coup in October 1999 Gen Musharraf has been seeking a constitutional ruse to legitimise his military regime and ensure he remains unchallenged as unelected leader of Pakistan.

Last year the supreme court gave him some breathing space until this October - the three-year anniversary of the coup - to hold general elections.

However, even after elections for the provincial and national parliaments scheduled for the first week in October, Gen Musharraf has already stated he will remain both president and head of state.

In the run-up to the vote he is likely to reinstate presidential powers giving him the right to dismiss unsupportive prime ministers.

At first the general had planned to use the newly-elected parliament to vote him in place as president, giving a democratic veneer to his military dictatorship.

Now, perhaps wary of what results on election day may bring, Gen Musharraf has opted for a referendum.

His decision has been badly received in Pakistan. Many political analysts here doubt the constitutional legality of such a referendum.

Few have forgotten December 19 1984 when the last dictator General Zia-ul Haq held a farcical referendum to prolong his own rule.

He twisted the question presented to the voters suggesting that if they wanted Pakistan to be an Islamic country they should endorse him as president.

He then unashamedly rigged the results in his favour.

Now nearly all the major political and religious parties are already lined up against the new referendum and most analysts are scathing about Gen Musharraf's plans.

"As so often before, the people of Pakistan are once again being asked to suspend disbelief and go along with another ploy to keep someone in power," wrote Ayaz Amir in a column in the Dawn newspaper.

"Gen Musharraf's referendum has as much basis in the constitution as his coup d'etat."

If the turnout goes against him on the day of the referendum he will be left in a delicate position. No one expects the general to step down if he fares badly but the hand of opposition parties will be strengthened.

Several leading religious clerics who were jailed after protests at the start of the US bombing in Afghanistan have now been released.

Gen Musharraf is likely to try to win them over and use them to engineer a supportive government in the October elections.

"It is very easy to obtain power in this country but very difficult to exercise it unless you have legitimacy," said Samina Ahmed, of the International Crisis Group.

Yet any relaxation of his promised crackdown on Islamic militancy will meet with harsh words from his rival India and increased pressure from the United States.

Gen Musharraf's referendum appears to be taking Pakistan still further from Mohammad Ali Jinnah's vision.