The declaration by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) that the presidential polls will be held on October 06 is of critical concern. It is imperative to point out that the ECP has played a very crucial role in facilitating the re-election bid of President Musharraf by declaring that he would be eligible to contest elections, despite a constitutional ban on government officials from standing for elections unless they retired two years before the polls.
The fall of the Red Mosque (Lal Masjid) has indeed heralded a new era in Pakistan marked by conflict between moderate and fundamentalist forces.
Like in any nuclear weapon state, multiple vulnerabilities exist in a nuclear weapons complex. In the case of Pakistan, it is possible that groups or individuals may violate security rules for a variety of reasons, including profit-making, settling a vendetta, or religious or ideological motives. Rogue elements may try to gain control over sensitive items for their own use or transfer them to another state or non-state actors for financial or ideological reasons. A special concern is that Pakistan, as its history suggests, may suffer another military coup at some point in time.
After five long years of advent of suicide terrorism in Pakistan (a recent estimate indicated about around 30 suicide bombing incidents with well above 160 fatalities have taken place since 2002), suddenly the erstwhile supporters/believers (somehow tacitly) of suicide (Fidayeen) attacks voiced against this most lethal terror tactic. Although, the use of suicide bombings in Pakistan never caused a public backlash in general, some liberal and progressive Muslims do oppose the tactics irrespective of their targets, but their voice never posed a deterrent.
The suspension of Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Pakistan (SCP), on 9 March 2007, sparked a wave of protest from the legal community of Pakistan. The most recent wave of resignations included the Deputy Attorney General Nasir Saeed Sheikh and a senior civil judge Javed Memon. The issue at stake was the ability of the President to dismiss an acting Chief Justice, an act not without precedent in the political history of Pakistan.