Former Pakistani prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif signed up today to run in a January election while a spokesman for President Pervez Musharraf said he would be sworn in as a civilian on Thursday.
Both Mr Sharif and Ms Bhutto said they might yet boycott the January 8th general election, which is being organised under emergency rule that US ally Gen Musharraf imposed on November 3rd, largely to derail legal challenges to his bid to secure another term.
Mr Sharif, ousted by President Musharraf eight years ago, flew home from Saudi Arabia yesterday saying Gen Musharraf had taken the country to the brink of disaster.
Two-time prime minister Mr Sharif said he would not be a candidate for prime minister under Gen Musharraf, who had to reinstate the judges he purged after declaring the emergency.
Mr Sharif also said he retained the option of boycotting the elections. "We don't want to boycott elections, but if you push somebody to the wall, then what are the options left?" MR Sharif said at a news conference in Lahore.
"The boycott remains a very potent option for the opposition," said Mr Sharif, who was deported when he tried to come back in September.
But the political atmosphere has changed radically since then with Gen Musharraf's imposition of an emergency and the apparent breakdown of efforts to forge co-operation between him and Ms Bhutto.
Gen Musharraf, having secured a second five-year term, thanks to a new panel of friendly judges who validated his October 6th election victory, will quit as army chief and take the oath as a civilian president on Thursday, his spokesman said.
Ms Bhutto, who came home from eight years in self-imposed exile last month, filed her election papers in her family's hometown of Larkana in the southern province of Sindh.
Western governments fear Gen Musharraf's emergency rule and moves to stifle democracy in Pakistan could give an advantage to Islamist militants threatening the nuclear-armed nation.
There have been more than 25 suicide attacks since Islamist militants intensified a campaign in July. The latest two killed 15 people in Rawalpindi on Saturday.
Meanwhile, 15 militants were killed in the latest fighting in the Swat Valley northwest of Islamabad, the military said.
Gen Musharraf is under pressure at home and abroad to roll back the emergency which he used to purge the Supreme Court of judges he feared would annul his October 6th election by parliament.