Pakistan Chief To Keep Two Jobs

Pakistani leader Pervez Musharraf will stay on as head of the armed forces and the nation's president, the information minister said Wednesday, despite a previous promise that he would give up his military post by the end of the year.

"The president will keep both the posts. The national situation demands that he keeps the two offices," Sheikh Rashid Ahmed told The Associated Press.

When asked why Musharraf was going back on a promise to quit as army chief, Ahmed said: "The situation has changed."

The decision comes after weeks of speculation, some fueled by Musharraf himself, that he was considering backing out of an agreement he reached in December with a hardline Islamic political block to give up his army post.

Musharraf, who took power in a bloodless coup in 1999 and has emerged as a key ally in the U.S.-led war on terrorism, said earlier this month he felt most people in the country wanted him to remain in both posts.

"Ninety-six percent (of people) will say 'do not remove (the army uniform),'" he said.

Those comments drew an angry response from the opposition, which accused the military leader of having a "lust for power."

Wednesday's announcement was sure to lead to international concern that Pakistan's slow progress back to democracy has all but ended.

The deal reached in December led to a constitutional amendment that appeared to bar a single person from holding both the top army spot and the presidency, as of Jan. 1, 2005. But Ahmed said there was an escape clause.

"The president can keep both the offices. There is no constitutional complication," he said.

The details of the deal with the hardline Mutahida Majlis-e-Amal coalition were never publicized, and Musharraf claims the party broke its promise by failing to support him in a parliamentary vote of confidence soon after the constitutional amendments were approved in January this year.

In a bid to pressure him to stick to the deal, MMA lawmakers in Pakistan's conservative North West Frontier province approved a non-binding resolution earlier Wednesday demanding that Musharraf quit the army job.

On Monday, the legislature in eastern Punjab, where a pro-Musharraf group has a majority, adopted a resolution saying Musharraf should continue as army chief "for his policy against terrorism and economic stability."

By Paul Haven