Pak media slams Musharraf regime for arresting opp leaders

ISLAMABAD: Pakistani media on Tuesday slammed the country's government for rounding up leaders of opposition parties ahead of the presidential polls to facilitate Pervez Musharraf's re-election for another five-year term.
 
A number of leading newspapers warned the government that the arrests would only lead to more political turmoil in the country and said the act would favour the opposition outfits that constitute the All Parties Democratic Movement.
 
In its editorial, leading Pakistani daily 'The News' said, "It is perhaps the first time that a government has detained opposition party MPs so as to prevent them from resigning from Parliament.
 
"The crackdown is aimed at preventing the opposition from doing anything untoward - in the government's eye that is - that affects the smooth re-election of President Pervez Musharraf."
 
Warning that difficult times are ahead for the Musharraf regime, the newspaper said: "This hamfistedness shatters the government's often-repeated claim that it wants to give all political parties a level playing field in the coming elections in Pakistan."
 
"While the opposition seems to be more than willing to do this, to further the cause of democracy, the same cannot really be said of the government," it said.
 
Similarly, another leading newspaper the 'Daily Times' said in its editorial, titled 'Operation Zero Tolerance will favour opposition', that the arrests would only lead to more political turmoil in the country.
 
The editorial said: "The pre-emptive operation was to stop them from building up steam for the September 29 struggle announced by the All Parties Democratic Movement.
 
"Some leaders have been sent to jail while others placed under house arrest. Some of them were roughed up and dragged because they showed resistance. But in all cases, the politicians and clerics were hardly upset by what's happening. In fact, most of them smiled as they were being arrested."
 
"As the APDM momentum builds up and the ruling Pakistan Muslim League's government is unable to talk to the self-exiled former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party, more change in the political landscape is expected," the newspaper warned.
 
Even, 'The Post' criticised the Musharraf regime for the arrests on pretext of preventing public disorder. "This is totally frivolous. There has been no serious indication that the APDM is capable of stirring unmanageable street trouble," an editorial said.
 
Urging the government to free the arrested leaders, the newspaper said, "These highly draconian steps could bring short-term windfalls to the government but in the long term it would inject much bitterness into the polity."