Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf lifting the emergency does not mean he is "back on track", a Democrat presidential hopeful has observed.
Joseph Biden, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said there were still "incredible restrictions" on the press and little time left for other parties to campaign for the polls.
"No, I don't," Biden replied when asked if he had the confidence that Musharraf is back on track and he will do the right thing.
"Because, if you look at the state of emergency he lifted, there's still incredible restrictions on the press. He's lifted it at the very last minute. There's only three or four weeks left to campaign, for any other parties to go out and campaign. He's done the bare minimum," the senator said.
"Now we have to keep the pressure on to make sure that these (the elections) are as fair as they can possibly be in the remaining four weeks, that there's total access, on the part of both (Nawaz) Sharif and (Benazir) Bhutto, to be able to go out there and campaign," the Delaware Democrat, who is an aspirant for the party nomination for the 2008 presidential ticket, said on CNN's 'Late Edition'.
Biden, an outspoken critic of the fashion in which the Bush Administration has gone about with a 'Musharraf Policy' as opposed to a 'Pakistan Policy', also pointed out that before shedding his uniform, Musharraf "unilaterally" amended the constitution in several parts.
"Our only hope here is that there's a possibility of people turning out for an election that is not fair in the sense that there's been adequate time to campaign, but that, in polls that we're showing now, is that 70 per cent of the people of Pakistan say they don't support Musharraf; 68 per cent say he should leave now," Biden said.
"If that's reflected of the polls in the democratic election, then we are able to continue to move from a Musharraf policy to a Pakistani policy and support those democratic pieces in there," he said.
Biden was asked to comment on an observation by US President George W Bush that Musharraf has been an "absolute" reliable partner in the war on terror.
"I agree they helped. I don't agree they've been great partners," the senior Democrat said.
"They've basically made a deal in Waziristan. That's a tribal area that is where the Taliban is, as well as al Qaeda... they made their own deal, which is basically, you leave us alone; we'll leave you alone, that meaning the Taliban and al Qaeda. And they've done the bare minimum," he said.
Maintaining that there were no facts to back there has been a consistent effort to really go after the terrorists, he said, "I find relying totally on what Musharraf is going to do for our security here, rather than promoting, much more strongly than we are, the democratic movement within that country, where 70 per cent of people in Pakistan are moderate and not sectarian, I find it a misplaced policy."
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