Musharraf should understand, people of the world knows what he is upto. this is just like if some one says i have no clothes to wear and Musharraf says than wear suit and don't wear clothes,
Man (Musharraf) people need JUSTICE, not election, people need elected representative not selective representative, people need basic rights not big promises, people need standard of living not what we have in our foreign exchange reserves
For Allah (God) sake, wakeup and stop killing the people of Pakistan, Stop killing Pakistan, as previous Generals did,
Ayub Khan/Yahya gave away East Pakistan (Now Bangladesh), Zia gave us MQM and now you are doing your best to have Sindistan, Pakhtoonistan & Pakistan is only Punjab and Islamabad,
We beg you, please leave our country alone, Go away whereever you want to go, but leave our country, please leave our country, go to your best friend 'Altaf Hussain' in London, but please leave Pakistan as one unit.
May Allah Bless our Pakistan

Tanveer Alam, Dubln, Ireland

What a joke with the world and Pakistan.First of all like all other promises made by Musharraf,this wll not be carried out.He has announced this just to take the world for a ride,fully knowing the end.If anybody believes that an election and Emergency are compatible,he cannot be realistic.It is like offering a hungry person all the food he wants with just one condition that he will have to pay for it,at the rate determined by the resturant.You can rest assured that there will be no election.The main thing he wants to ru away from is restoration of judiciary,which did not let him do all a dictator can

zaman, hamden, CT

Unfortuantely, this announcement of election might help musharaf silence some of his critics in the west but what he did on Nov 3 was a war on judiciary, At this time, elections are meaningless. The most important thing is lifting of MARTIAL LAW (IT IS NOT EMERGENCY), restoration of JUDICIARY back to NOv 3rd status, good bye to Musharaf (who I think has closed all doors for himself by imposing the Martial law. For him, remaining the President was the most important thing and he has destroyed the only other viable institution (Judiciary) just for his own sake. The way civil society has been treated, Mr Musharaf if has some self respect should come forward and apologize to the nation and give up presidency. Again, I hope Pakistan as a nation is able to fight this dictator and is able to get rid of him soon.

Ramesh Kumar, Troy, MI

Remember that dicatorship needs extremism and extremism needs dictatorship, the dictator needs extremism to justify it's illegitimate rule and to tell the west (which seems to have schezophenic about extremism, though we all should worry about it, but be logical as well) that look these people are rising if i won't be there and if u won't support me they will get everything in thier hands and god forbid will do the unimaginable, whereas the extremist needs dictator cause they can never prosper in democracy when the government has direct links with the people, and if u want a proof just look at the history of this country, these extremist never prosper in the history of this country as they did in the time of General Zia and now under this dictator.

The religious parties in the history of the country never secured more then 5% of the vote in general elections ever, in 1997 general elections they secured only 1 seat in the 100 members assembly of Frontier province.

Zalan, Peshawar, Pakistan

elections being declared are just to keep west quite. Whether the elections are held or not time will tell. West must know that first step towards defusing the present situation is lifting of emergency and restoration of judiciary back to 3rd of november status. This is the main demand of the people of Pakistan.Every other announcement besides this including date for elections is just to beat about the bush and not adressing the real issue. Elections in the presence of emergency will definitely be bucotted by all the major opposition parties and hence a stalemate.

Ali Bokhari, galway, ireland

Pakistan doesn't need fair elections. It has never had them. What it needs is a strong leader who doesn't plunder the country for their own gain.
In Musharaf, Pakistan has all it needs to continue to prosper and move forward. All it needs now is a familiar face, this will come in the form of Benazir Bhutto.
Let's just hope hands are kept out of the till and investment in the country continues.
The main area of investment should be education, education and education. This will bring us a generation that is better able to move the country forward than previous generations

Abid, Shipley, UK

Benazir, from a feudal family whio own vast tracts of land and practice bonded labour is the hope of the West. In her last two stints, she has lined her own pockets whilst openly practising nepotism. She is only in it for the power. Democracy takes a back seat. Shame on the Western leaders for suporting her.

Hamad Lone, London, England

World is going to witness the first of this kind of election where the election is going to be conducted while the country is in state of emergency and the dictator himself fighting in election. The bilion dollar question is who is going to insure that the elections would be conducted fairly.At present there is no counteracting body which is active in Pakistan which provides hedging towards the failure of fair election and provides the choice to the peoples of Pakistan for thinking beyond extremism towards techanical and societal development of Republic of Pakistan.

Pawan Shukla, kanpur, India