PARIS, April 8: In a wide-ranging interview in Monday’s Le Figaro, newspaper President Pervez Musharraf says he is confident that he will win next month’s referendum because “my goal is to establish in Pakistan a real democracy. The referendum will confirm that the people wants me. It will also reinforce me politically, all the while weakening my adversaries. In saying ‘yes,’ the Pakistani people will express their willingness to break with the errors of the past and, therefore, support my project for democratic reform.”

Queried as to whether Pakistan — which recently obtained from the Paris Club the rescheduling for over a 38-year period of its bilateral debt of US$ 12 billion — planned to request the cancellation of all or part of its existing multilateral debt of US$24 billion, Mr Musharraf said he didn’t think that would be necessary because “we plan to successfully introduce a plan to relaunch our economy which will liberate us from (the problem of) debt.”

As matters stand, he notes, “we are still paying for the past governments who left us with only US$500 million in reserves when we arrived, just about enough to cover a week’s worth of imports. Today, what we want to do is reimburse our debt, all the while lift the standard of living of our people. And we will succeed.”

Part of the solution, he says, will be to instil a true democracy, something in turn, he notes, which will call for a better balance of power between the people and the military.

“My objective,” he says, “is the balance between the powers. To consolidate our democracy, I need two forces, that which comes from the army, and that which flows from the people. During eleven years, from 1987 to 1999, the army remained in its barracks. It let the politicians run the country without ever involving itself in their actions. As a result, Pakistan found itself on the verge of bankruptcy. The army saved the country.”

Speaking of tolerance, Mr Musharraf said that there was in the world “no country as intolerant as India, the same country which glorifies itself as the world’s largest democracy.

Indian democracy is pure bluff. As for the Hindus, let’s not forget that it is not only the Muslims that they attack, but also the Sikhs, Christians and the Untouchables.”

Mr Musharraf also said that he suspected India of having played a role in the murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl and of wanting to destabilize Pakistan.