Pakistan's Supreme Court today cleared the last legal hurdle for President Pervez Musharraf to be confirmed in office after winning fresh presidential elections last month.

The court – stuffed with judges sympathetic to General Musharraf – today took less than an hour to throw out the sixth and final legal challenge to the constitutionality of his standing for office while still in the military.

General Musharraf is now expected to doff his uniform and quit as head of the army within days, in order to continue the appearance of moving from military dictatorship to civilian democracy.

"The petition is dismissed," said chief justice Abdul Hameed Dogar.

Like many of his colleagues, Mr Dogar has been in the job less than three weeks after General Musharraf sacked the previous crop of Supreme Court judges hearing the case, for refusing to swear a new oath under the emergency rule he introduced at the start of this month.

Analysts say that in fact the President feared that the old judges would rule against him.

After today's ruling Sarifuddin Pirzada, the General's chief legal adviser, said that last month's presidential election in which General Musharraf won another five-year term of office could now be declared valid by the Electoral Commission.

"Now the court has to give us this in writing," said Mr Pirzada.

Malik Mohammed Qayyum, the Attorney General, said that General Musharraf could retire from the army as early as Saturday.

The Supreme Court is expected to issue a directive to the Electoral Commission tomorrow, ordering it to ratify the election results.

The Pakistan stock market rose on news of the ruling. General Musharraf has been popular with investors for bringing a degree of stability to the country since he seized power in a military coup in 1999.

The judgment leaves the General's political opponents in a quandary, wondering whether to accept the ruling and fight forthcoming parliamentary elections, or to reject it as politically tainted and boycott the elections.

Since General Musharraf imposed the state of emergency on November 3 he has ordered the imprisonment or house arrest of more than 5,000 judges, lawyers and opposition political activists. The former chief justice, Iftikhar Chaudhury, remains under house arrest and attempts by other sacked Supreme Court judges to visit him yesterday were blocked by the soldiers guarding his home.

Most of the lower level detainees have been freed in the last two days, since the new Supreme Court panel revealed on Monday that it was throwing out five of the six legal challenges to General Musharraf's re-election.

Imran Khan, the cricketer turned politician who leads his own tiny opposition party, was freed yesterday after threatening to go on hunger strike in jail until emergency rule ended.

But senior legal figures such as the President of the Pakistan Bar Association, and other senior lawyers who helped to organise protests, remain in custody.

General Musharraf has been widely condemned abroad for imposing the state of emergency, and faces the prospect of Pakistan being suspended from the Commonwealth for failing to meet a deadline of today to restore the constitution and release the prisoners.

His Government has appealed to the other 52 nations of the Commonwealth - whose heads of state are due to meet in Uganda - not to follow through on its threat.

Don McKinnon, the Commonwealth Secretary-General said the vote on suspending Pakistan would take place tonight, the eve of a summit of Commonwealth heads of government.

The committee members, "are fully aware of all the information flowing out of Islamabad towards the Commonwealth leaders ... They are taking this into account as they address this rather difficult issue," Mr McKinnon told journalists.

Gordon Brown said today that General Musharraf has assured him that he will "do his utmost to lift," the state of emergency before January parliamentary elections and step down as army chief "as soon as possible".

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