WASHINGTON, Aug 22: "There will be fresh elections in Pakistan by the end of next year and these elections will be held by a new administration," predicts Imran Khan.

The Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaaf chief told a group of Pakistani journalists here that the present administrative set-up was ready to collapse and any major incident could bring it down.

"The Shaukat Aziz government cannot be much different from that of Mr Jamali's, although the new prime minister will be more pliant than his predecessor," said Mr Khan.

The PTI chief said that Mr Aziz had no political backing and that was why he would be even less resistant to moves from the president's office than Mr Jamali was. "But because of inherent contradictions within the system, there will be tensions between him and Mr Musharraf, leading to his departure."

Mr Khan said the ongoing operations in Waziristan would have more negative consequences for Pakistan than the Afghan war, which brought the Kalashnikov and the heroin cultures.

He disagreed with the government's claims that a few hundred Al Qaeda terrorists had hijacked the entire tribal belt and were forcing the local tribesmen to follow their orders.

"The government should know that they are talking about a people who could not be defeated by the British. How can they be taken hostage by a few hundred Al Qaeda supporters?" he asked.

Imran Khan urged the government to think of the consequences of its actions for Pakistan and refrain from 'arresting and harassing innocent people to help President Bush win the election'.

Asked if the government could force the MMA drop its demand for the president to quit the army by the end of December, he said, "The MMA knows the consequences.

It knows how its position on the 17th amendment hurt it politically and will not repeat the mistake on the issue of the uniform. That will be a political suicide." The PTI leader, however, said this was 'a Catch-22 situation' for the president.