ISLAMABAD, Dec 11: President Pervez Musharraf pledged in an interview broadcast on Tuesday to cooperate with whoever wins January’s general election, saying that he was not a “trouble creator”.

Opposition leaders Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif have accused Mr Musharraf of wanting to rig the polls, although both have declined to boycott the elections on the grounds that they do not want to leave the field open.

But Mr Musharraf, who has pledged to lift a five-week-old state of emergency on Dec 15, told Al-Jazeera’s English channel that he was willing to work with the winners of the crunch polls on January 8.

“I will try to work with anyone who comes to power after the elections,” Mr Musharraf said.

“I interact with people quite well, I am not such a trouble creator.” Mr Musharraf’s relations with Ms Bhutto and Mr Sharif have been stormy.

He had no conciliatory words however for the country’s deposed Chief Justice, Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, saying that he had to impose emergency rule on November 3 because the judge was “illegally trying to remove me.”

“What would have happened if we allowed this chief justice to have his own way? We would have landed this country into chaos,” Mr Musharraf said.

Mr Musharraf meanwhile said that he would keep a close relationship with the military, despite quitting as army chief on November 28 and becoming a civilian president eight years after grabbing power.

“My relationship with army is not direct, obviously. There is protocol obviously, there is the chief of army staff,” he said.

“However 46 years of association does not get washed off, they will remember me, I will remember them for quite some time to come,” he said.—AFP