By Khalid Qayum and Anthony Spaeth
June 26 (Bloomberg) -- Four months of street protests have eroded Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf's popular support, threatening his plans to get re-elected while keeping control of the military, the key to his power.
A constitutional amendment allowing the army chief of staff to also hold the presidency expires at the end of this year. The Pakistani leader, whose presidential term through an indirect election ends Nov. 15, is facing U.S. calls for a loosening of one-man rule, as well as the protesters' demands for a full restoration of democracy.
``Musharraf's stars are fading,'' Hassan Abbas, a fellow at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, said in an e- mail. ``There is a cry for free, fair and transparent elections.'' ~snip~
While Musharraf, 63, may decide to work with one of the country's political parties to regain the popular support he had when he seized power in 1999, he has yet to do so. Meanwhile, ``the U.S. is repeating the same mistake it did in Iran,'' said Ahsan Iqbal, information secretary for the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, one of the country's two most popular parties. ~snip~
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