Bhutto: Pakistan is returning to a dictatorship
(CNN) — Former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto described a wave of disappointment Saturday after President Pervez Musharraf declared a state of emergency in Pakistan and suspended the country’s constitution.
The country is going to dictatorship once again, Bhutto said, speaking outside her home in the port city of Karachi.
It is an uncertain situation, and the Pakistani public and I are really very disappointed with this emergency announcement.
Bhutto, who leads the Pakistan People’s Party, hopes to gain a third term as prime minister after January’s parliamentary elections, possibly under a power-sharing deal with Musharraf.
His actions Saturday were likely out of fear that Pakistan’s Supreme Court might dissolve his victory in the October presidential election, Bhutto said.
For weeks, Pakistan has been coasting in a state of political limbo while the Supreme Court worked to tackle legal challenges filed by the opposition that call into question Musharraf’s eligibility to hold office.
The Supreme Court declared the state of emergency illegal and claimed Musharraf had no power to suspend the constitution, Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry said.
Shortly afterward, Chaudhry was expelled as chief justice.
In Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad, troops entered the Supreme Court and surrounded the judges’ homes, according to CNN’s Syed Mohsin Naqvi.
A decision to arrest the judges will weaken the supremacy of law in the country, Bhutto said.
She arrived in the country earlier Saturday after visiting family in Dubai. Watch crowds surround Bhutto upon her arrival
Bhutto returned to Pakistan last month, despite death threats, after eight years of self-imposed exile.
On October 18, a bombing attack in Karachi intended for Bhutto’s slowly moving motorcade killed 136 people.
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