Pak election race picks up speed

Pakistan's election race picked up speed yesterday as the party backing President Pervez Musharraf launched its manifesto promising to focus on human rights in the emergency-ruled country.
The move, one day after former premier Nawaz Sharif dropped his threat to boycott the January 8 vote, means the nation's main political parties are now all in the fray.
Pakistan's other main opposition party, led by another ex-premier Benazir Bhutto, had said late last month that it would contest the election.
The pro-Musharraf Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q), which was in power from 2002 until last month, welcomed the decision by Sharif -- the man ousted by Musharraf in a bloodless 1999 coup.
"This is a very good step that they have decided to participate in the vote. It will enhance the credibility of the elections," PML-Q head Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain told reporters at the launch of his party's manifesto.
Fears the election would be boycotted and sustain international criticism had haunted Musharraf and his former ruling party, created in 2002 to contest elections under his banner after poaching most of its members from Sharif.
Musharraf came under intense worldwide fire for cracking down on opponents, rights activists, lawyers and the media when he imposed his state of emergency on November 3. He has promised to lift it by December 15.
Hussain said the PML-Q would focus on rights, political reconciliation and tackling Islamic extremism.
In a reminder of that violence, which has claimed some 700 lives this year so far, a suicide bomber blew himself up next to a school bus near a military base in northwest Pakistan earlier Monday, injuring five children.
"Our manifesto is based on human rights and values, tolerance, harmony and a free media," Hussain told a news conference.
The party's secretary general, Mushahid Hussain, said it wanted to end the months of political chaos that culminated in the emergency rule.
"We make it clear that culture of revenge will have to be replaced with a culture of reconciliation. We will have to make our minds and attitude democratic," he said at the same briefing.
"Democracy forms the basis of Pakistan. We believe in democracy with the right to dissent," he said.
He made no comment about the global pressure on Musharraf to lift the state of emergency as promised, and widespread criticism of a crackdown on the opposition during the past month.
On Islamic militancy in Pakistan, especially in the country's troubled tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, Mushahid Hussain said his party wanted a political solution.
The tribal belt "needs a healing touch," he said. "Extremism and terrorism can be resolved by political parties, which symbolise sovereignty and integrity of the country."
During his party's time in power, Pakistan prospered economically but also faced a growing threat from Islamic militancy and, in its final year, growing political opposition to Musharraf's grip on power.
Sharif has been leading that opposition since returning from his seven-year exile last month, but has been barred from standing for office because of a court conviction.
A spokesman for his Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz party said late Sunday it would take part in the election despite fears the polls would not be free and fair.
"Since Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party is not with us on the boycott issue and is contesting the election, and also some other parties, we cannot leave the field open," party spokesman Ahsan Iqbal told AFP.