Musharraf yields to pressure

General Pervez Musharraf's weekend declaration of a state of emergency in Pakistan was yesterday unravelling fast in the face of furious domestic and international reaction. Elections are now to be held in January as scheduled and he said he will resign as army chief. Pressure is mounting on him to restore the rule of law, release prisoners and lift censorship.

Allied powers refuse to accept his move was necessary to protect Pakistan against Islamic extremism and judicial interference, seeing it rather as a desperate attempt to hold on to his personal power. But he knows well they cannot afford to abandon his regime for fear of an unknown alternative.

It is a high level crisis for this strategic region and for the Bush administration which has relied so much on Gen Musharraf in its struggle against the al-Qaeda movement responsible for the 9/11 attacks in 2001. Pakistan is crucial for the military campaign in Afghanistan, where US and Nato troops are fighting al-Qaeda's Taliban allies. Its military is formally pledged, with substantial US aid, to put down sympathetic movements in the neighbouring Pakistani province of Waziristan; but they are historically implicated with them and anyway have had limited success against the resurgent Islamic movement there.

All this has constrained US and British efforts to put a democratic face on the military regime by encouraging an opening to its civilian opponents. The compromise pursued in recent months involved Ms Benazir Bhutto's return from exile to give some cover for Gen Musharraf's continuation as president, assuming he relinquished his role as army chief-of-staff. It has been a risky venture for both of them, involving his re-election by the outgoing parliament, the dropping of corruption charges against her and a gamble that this formula would neutralise other political currents opposed to Gen Musharraf's rule. It came unstuck because he could not trust the country's increasingly independent supreme court. Behind the court's assertiveness is a more and more confident civil society impatient with military rule and demanding fresh elections to move beyond it.

This crisis will hopefully allow for such a democratic breakthrough. But it would be foolish to disregard the vested interests ranged against such an outcome. The military has ruled Pakistan for most of its independent existence and will not relinquish power easily. The regime has nuclear arms, and it is frightening to contemplate how these would fare in any prolonged struggle involving the military, Islamic movements and democratic parties.

International pressure must be kept up for this desperate and rash decision to be reversed, for those arrested to be released, for the rule of law to be restored and elections held. Pakistan has reached the stage when it can be ruled by more democratic means. Ms Bhutto holds many of the key cards needed to move beyond this stage, since she can throw her hand in with the opposition if Gen Musharraf refuses to change his mind.