Musharraf won't quit army chief role

Musharraf gestures at a news conference where he announced he would stay on as Pakistan's army chief even if he is elected for another five years.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- General Pervez Musharraf plans on remaining a key power in Pakistan regardless of the outcome on a referendum this month designed to bolster his position following parliamentary elections set for October.

The April 30 referendum, which Musharraf is expected to win comfortably, will ask voters to extend his presidency for five years beyond the October poll.

General Musharraf, who seized power in the Muslim state in a bloodless coup in October 1999, told international media Tuesday he would not relinquish his position as army chief, even if Pakistanis agreed to extend his presidency.

"I will continue to be the army chief," Musharraf, dressed in military fatigues, told a nationally televised news conference, the Associated Press reports.

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Musharraf also refused to contemplate defeat in the referendum or outline what he would do if he were to lose on April 30.

"I will take my own decisions if at all that happens, and I will take it in the national interest, I can assure you of that," Reuters reports Musharraf saying.

"But as I said I take very calculated risks," he said. "If there was some kind of a great risk about it I may not have taken this risk at all ... I know what the people think, so let us prove it on the 30th of April."

Musharraf has been touring the country, addressing rallies in Pakistan's major cities in a bid to mobilize support for the referendum.

The vote would secure his position ahead of October elections for a new parliament, which under the constitution is supposed to select the president and prime minister.

By holding the referendum before the parliament elections, Musharraf would secure his position regardless of the outcome of the October vote.

The referendum has been opposed by exiled Pakistan politicians Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif and by opposition parties within the nation with the Jamat-e-Islami party challenging the vote in the Pakistan Supreme Court.

A senior Pakistan judge has also quit Pakistan's Electoral Commission over his opposition to the referendum .

"The government had left me with no option except resignation and resign I did," Justice Tariq Mehmood of the Baluchistan High Court told Reuters in the provincial capital, Quetta.

Respect decision

Musharraf said Tuesday he would respect the Supreme Court's decision on the issue but continue to hold rallies in support of the proposal in the meantime.

Musharraf defended the referendum, saying his election would end uncertainty hindering investment and creating an unstable political situation, wire services report.

He said Pakistan's constitution allowed him the right to call a referendum on "important national issues".

A key ally in the U.S.-led war against terrorism, Musharraf said he has done more than any of his predecessors to curb Islamic fundamentalism, including banning extremist groups.

The referendum has also been criticized by arch-rival India who sees any strengthening of Musharraf's political position as a threat to relations between the two countries.

"Musharraf as Army chief and at the helm politically, would end up concentrating all the powers in one person, with the additional stamp of legitimacy," the Times of India quotes a senior ministry of external affairs official as saying.