Musharraf undertakes farewell visit to military headquarters

Islamabad, Nov 27 (UNI) Pakistan's military ruler Pervez Musharraf today paid farewell visits to military headquarters a day before relinquishing army's command for his successor General Ashfaq Parvez Kiyani.

Gen Musharraf, who ruled the country for more than eight years in uniform is set to take oath as civilian president for the next five years on Thursday.

He would hand over command of the army tomorrow to Gen Kiyani, whom he had named as his successor in October after an undertaking to the Supreme Court that he would hang off uniform before taking the oath for the second term.

Facing tremendous international pressure for lifting the emergency that he imposed on November 3 and holding free and fair elections, Gen Musharraf had overwhelmingly won the October 6 presidential polls.

An 11-member bench of the apex court had ordered to withhold notification of the returned candidate till decision on six identical petitions challenging Gen Musharraf's re-election.

However, most of the Judges of the bench ceased to function after November 3 emergency and a purged Supreme Court rubber-stamped his victory after throwing away all the petitions.

Gen Musharraf began his day with a farewell visit to the Joint Staff Headquarters where he met chairman, Joint Chiefs General Tariq Majeed and inspected guard of honour by contingent drawn from Army, Navy and Air Force.

Later, he visited Naval and Air Headquarters to say goodbye to his colleagues in uniform.

UNI