Pak SC to give verdict on Mush dual office case today

New Delhi: The Pakistan Supreme Court is expected to give its verdict on Friday in the dual office case against President Pervez Musharraf.

A panel of Supreme Court judges will rule on opposition petitions saying Musharraf is ineligible to contest the election while remaining head of the army. Pakistan's national Parliament and provincial assemblies choose the president.

The other two opposition contenders are Amin Fahim of the PPP, and former Supreme Court judge Wajihuddin Ahmed.

Nawaz Sharif's party, the PML-N, and its partners in the All Parties Democratic Alliance said they will resign from the National Assembly on Saturday in protest against Musharraf's re-election plans.

The Pakistan Supreme Court has meanwhile asked the government to release the over 100 opposition activists detained over last weekend. The activists were detained to prevent them from staging anti-Musharraf protests.

Musharraf sparked the biggest opposition protests since he took power in a military coup in 1999 when he removed Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry from his post in March this year.

The President formally applied to stand in the election on Thursday, seeking a second five-year term in office.

Meanwhile, Pakistan's former prime minister Benazir Bhutto has acknowledged that she has met secretly with Musharraf but said she was increasingly pessimistic about reaching a power-sharing deal with the leader.

Bhutto plans to return to Pakistan next month from self-exile and she has threatened to withdraw her lawmakers from Parliament if Musharraf does not compromise, for instance by lifting a ban on her serving a third term as prime minister.

In an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer, Bhutto said she and Musharraf have had "had an opportunity to meet, we've had a good rapport, a good exchange of ideas, but there are people around him who don't want this understanding, who don't want him to make the political concessions that are necessary to facilitate the path towards democracy."

Asked if she had met secretly with Musharraf, Bhutto said, "Well, we were supposed to keep it secret, but it's kind of an open secret now."

Musharraf and Bhutto met in the Gulf emirate of Abu Dhabi.