Pakistan's Musharraf pledges free elections

BRUSSELS - Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf pledged on Monday to hold free elections as he began a European trip aimed at bolstering outside support, but urged the West not to hold Pakistan to unrealistic rights standards.

Musharraf's popularity has slumped in Pakistan, racked by militant attacks and facing a parliamentary election on February 18 meant to complete a transition to civilian rule.

"We are determined to hold free, fair and transparent elections, and peaceful elections ... There is no possibility of it being rigged," he told reporters in Brussels, where he will meet European Union and NATO officials.

Asked how he would handle any victory by political opponents, he replied: "Whoever wins, obviously power will be handed over ... There is no question at all that we will deny forming a government to whichever party forms a majority."

Responding to concerns over human rights and democracy in Pakistan, Musharraf said he believed in both but termed Western preoccupation with the issues "obsessive".

"You have taken centuries in reaching wherever you have come. Allow us time for going for the values that you have established for yourselves."

"We have a feudal tribal environment in some of our provinces, therefore in accordance with our environment we have to adapt democracy, human rights, civil liberties."

Fears for nuclear-armed Pakistan's stability were heightened by the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto in a bomb and gun attack on December 27.

A surge of attacks by al Qaeda-linked militants based on the Afghan border has raised concern about prospects for the country and its efforts to support NATO and U.S. forces struggling to subdue Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan.

RIGHTS WARNINGS

Musharraf met Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt and was due to see EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana and NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer in Brussels.

He will meet French President Nicolas Sarkozy in Paris and then attend the World Economic Forum in Switzerland before talks in London with Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

While Musharraf may get the backing he seeks from European leaders, the former army chief who seized power in a 1999 coup can also expect them to tell him that he must do more to promote democracy and curb the activity of militants.

Solana is expected to stress the importance of free elections and rights group Amnesty International urged him and other European leaders to press Musharraf to end violations "sowing the seeds of a political catastrophe".

"Arbitrary arrests and detentions, enforced disappearances, and torture and ill-treatment - coupled with pervasive political violence undermine the prospect of free and fair elections," it said in a statement.

Pakistan's Commerce Minister Shahzada Alam Monnoo said Pakistan needed a strong elected government, but this was unlikely, given ill-feeling generated by Bhutto's killing, and elections might have to be held again in another two years.

"There's too much fragmentation," he told reporters. "It has to be a coalition government and a coalition government cannot continually take good decisions. If we want to attract foreign investment people want a government they can talk to."