KUALA LUMPUR, March 31: President Gen Pervez Musharraf is confident voters will give him five more years in power if he decides to call a referendum on his rule, Interior Minister Moinuddin Haider told Reuters on Sunday.

Musharraf, who took power in a coup in October 1999, says he needs more time to push through the economic and political reforms needed to bring stability to the country.

“He’s been consulting with most of the political parties and he wishes to go, he’s considering to go for a referendum and he feels he will have a direct mandate from the people,” Haider said in an interview in Kuala Lumpur, where he is to attend an OIC meeting on terrorism, which starts on Monday.

“He’ll be in a stronger position to provide strong leadership to the country for the continuation of his reform policy and polices against terrorism,” Haider said.

Musharraf told journalists in Pakistan on Saturday a decision on a referendum would be taken within a week. The country’s Election Commission said a referendum should be held within a month of its announcement.

“So it will be a referendum to show the country wants to go on the path of a moderate and progressive and dynamic Islam and system of government,” Haider said. The Supreme Court has effectively endorsed Musharraf’s government, but told him to hold democratic elections within three years — by this October — a deadline Musharraf says he will meet.

“He has promised that he will go in for elections in October/ November this year, so there will be normal elections. State assemblies will be chosen, provincial assemblies and national assemblies and the senate will be chosen,” he said.

“Business will be as usual as a democracy.”

AL QAEDA SUSPECTS: The interior minister also said half of the 60 people arrested by security forces in raids in the Punjab on Thursday were foreigners.