Bhutto says Musharraf must quit

By Simon Gardner

LAHORE, Pakistan (Reuters) - Held under house arrest behind barbed wire, Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto called on Tuesday for military leader Pervez Musharraf to quit as president, isolating him in the run-up to a general election.

Britain stepped up international pressure on Musharraf, who imposed emergency rule on November 3 in a move seen aimed at helping him cling to power, backing a 10-day Commonwealth ultimatum for him to end the emergency and quit as army chief.

Bhutto has long called for Musharraf to step down as army chief and become a civilian president but it was the first time she had called for him to quit as president altogether -- a move that could sound the death knell for U.S. hopes that the pair would end up sharing power.

She also said she would not serve as prime minister under him, and that her party might boycott the general election Musharraf has promised to hold by January 9.

"It is time for him to go. He must quit as president," Bhutto, who spent months trying to negotiate a power-sharing deal with Musharraf, told Reuters by telephone as police bundled clusters of her protesting supporters into vans.

Bhutto was put under house arrest for a week in the city of Lahore, and a motorcade to Islamabad that she planned to lead to protest against emergency rule was stifled as 20,000 police sealed the area. Her party said 1,500 activists had been held.

CRITICISM

Musharraf set off a storm of criticism when he imposed the emergency, suspended the constitution, sacked judges, locked up lawyers, rounded up thousands of activists and curbed the media.