DUBAI, March 1: Former military ruler Gen (retd) Pervez Musharraf said on Friday he would return home within weeks to contest elections after more than four years in self-imposed exile, but did not set a specific date.

“Under the advice of all my party men, we have decided that as soon as the interim government is in place, which we hope will be on March 16, within a week of that I will go back to Pakistan,” he announced in Dubai.

Last year Gen Musharraf delayed a planned homecoming indefinitely after the government warned that he would be arrested upon arrival and a few commentators in Pakistan believe he will return this time.

Gen Musharraf is wanted over the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto in a gun and suicide attack after an election rally in Rawalpindi on December 27, 2007.

But he said he was not afraid. “People say that there are cases against me and there is danger. I am not afraid of dangers and I leave it to God,” Mr Musharraf said.

Some media reports have said that he will seek Saudi help in obtaining guarantees that he will not be detained. “I don’t see any reason why I should be arrested,” he said.

“We will see what will happen when I land at the airport and take action according to that.”

Gen Musharraf has lived in London and Dubai since stepping down in August 2008, but much of his powerbase in Pakistan has evaporated.

Commentators question whether he has enough loyalists in the military to prevent him from being arrested in Pakistan and whether the army is willing to run the risk of having a former chief of staff thrown into jail.

Gen Musharraf said Pakistan needed a strong, stable government and presented himself as “a third political alternative” to Mr Zardari’s Pakistan People’s Party and to opposition leader Nawaz Sharif, whom he ousted in a bloodless coup in 1999. “We, this party of mine, All Pakistan Muslim League, will participate in the coming elections and we will God willing put up candidates in almost all the constituencies of Pakistan,” he said.

He called for free and fair elections, which he said would only be possible under supervision by the army.

Asked if he planned to run for president, he said: “The presidency will come at a later stage. Now I’m going back for the parliamentary elections and hope my party does well.”—Agencies