Musharraf Doesn't Declare A State of Emergency

In response to growing violence and political unrest in Pakistan recently, President Prevez Musharraf was reported to be considering declaring the country as being in a state of emergency. The reason this is such a big deal is because if he were to to do so, the government, of which he is the head, and the army, again which he is in charge of, would both be given considerably more power in order to "deal" with the situation and 'restore order' so to say. The increase in violence is perhaps best currently represented by the raid to recapture the Red Mosque in Islamabad, which resulted in over 100 deaths.

I think that if he were to declare a state of emergency it would be a very scary thing. First of all, Musharraf first gained power by leading a military coup to overthrow the then current administration. I know nothing about the former government, so I don't know if this was a good or bad thing. Second, after doing so, he set up elections, which he won, but that were also reported to be rigged. Again, I don't know the details so I make no judgments, but these rumors come up in many of the articles I read that mention him and his presidency. Next, the country is supposed to go through new elections later this year, and if he were to declare a state of emergency, part of the the powers that would be granted to him would include the ability to stop people from engaging in political activities and assert fundamental freedoms, such as free speech. All of this evidence seems to support the notion that declaring a state of emergency would be an act of desperation on his part with the hopes of saving his power. This seems very.... sly to me: I don't like it. I especially don't like it because Pakistan is a leading ally of ours in the war on terror, and we need their true support, not just their false support. Pakistan shares a border with Afghanistan, where there is still much fighting going on between the coalition forces there and a combined terrorist-Taliban insurgency. I said in a previous article that I don't question the commitment that Pakistan has given the war on terror so far, but this article just troubles me a little, because I don't like the idea of someone who is supposed to be helping us fight terrorism making such desperate ploys to remain in power