Source BBC News

Ms Bhutto has proved an effective campaigner so far

Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto plans to head to the eastern city of Lahore, to build support for a protest march on the capital Islamabad. Ms Bhutto, a former PM, is campaigning against emergency rule imposed by President Pervez Musharraf last week.

She has called on Gen Musharraf to step down as army chief of staff within days and to hold elections by mid-January.

The president says the emergency is necessary to combat militant violence and end interference by the judiciary.

He has pledged to return to democratic rule, for which he has received the qualified backing of US President George W Bush.

Mr Bush said he had no reason to doubt Gen Musharraf’s word.

‘Pressure cooker’

Ms Bhutto was briefly placed under house arrest on Friday, but has since joined demonstrators in the capital to call for a return to democracy.

Correspondents say she has been an effective campaigner so far and has shown herself to be the only opposition leader capable of taking on the president.

When the masses combine, the sound of their steps will suppress the sound of military boots Benazir Bhutto

he former prime minister says she will press ahead with plans to lead a 275km (170-mile) “long march” of protest from Lahore to Islamabad, beginning on Tuesday.

A party spokesman said it was very probable she would travel to Lahore on Sunday to prepare for it.

By holding the march she risks a showdown with the authorities, but appears confident that it will consolidate opposition to the emergency.

“When the masses combine, the sound of their steps will suppress the sound of military boots,” Ms Bhutto said on Saturday at a gathering of journalists protesting against a partial news blackout.

She was stopped from meeting the dismissed chief justice, who remains under virtual house arrest, but spoke to foreign diplomats.

“Pakistan under dictatorship is a pressure cooker,” she told them, in comments quoted by the Press Trust of India.

“Without a place to vent, the passion of our people for liberty threatens to explode… There is not enough barbed wire, or bullets, or bayonets to defeat my people’s unquestionable desire for democracy.”

Earlier, Pakistan’s Attorney General, Malik Mohammad Qayyum, said emergency rule could be lifted within a month, as the security situation in the country was improving.

On Thursday Gen Musharraf pledged to hold parliamentary elections by 15 February - a month later than they were due.

He also renewed a promise to quit as head of the army, if and when the Supreme Court validated his recent re-election as president.

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