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WASHINGTON, July 13: Pakistan would be better off with an elected government, which will also provide a better base to combat terrorism, says US Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher.Mr Boucher told a congressional panel on Thursday that he has heard this argument also from President Pervez Musharraf during his recent visits to Pakistan and he agrees with it.

The senior US diplomat, who looks after South Asian affairs at the State Department, came under intense grilling in Congress for the Bush Administration’s unconditional support to Gen Musharraf.

Some lawmakers suggested that the administration’s policy had antagonised the Pakistani people who believe that the United States had deprived them of democracy by keeping a military ruler in power.

Mr Boucher disagreed with the suggestion, saying that President Musharraf was striving to turn Pakistan into a modern, open, prosperous and democratic state.

The Pakistani leader, he said, was a moderate voice in the Islamic world and that it was “strongly in the US national interest that Pakistan succeeds in realising this vision.”

He said despite the charges levelled against Islamabad in the fight against extremism, “its contribution has been significant.”

More than 85,000 Pakistani security forces are deployed along the Afghan border while as many as 450 of them have died in support of anti-terror efforts, Mr Boucher said.

He also rejected the charge that the US had “put all its eggs in one basket.”

The United States is pursuing a long-term strategic partnership with Pakistan that is both multidimensional and enduring, he said.

His arguments, apparently, did not satisfy the lawmakers who continued to insist throughout the proceedings that the US should support democratic forces in Pakistan instead of a military ruler.

Congressman John F. Tierney, who chaired the session, told the US official that the Pakistan government had already taken the first step towards rigging the forthcoming elections by tampering with the voters’ lists.

Mr Tierney, a Democrat, said that a delegation of the National Democratic Institute, which visited Pakistan in May, found that as many as 16 million voters were not registered and many of them supported opposition parties.

Congressman Tierney also referred to a letter former prime minister Benazir Bhutto had sent to US lawmakers, saying that the present Pakistani administration was incapable of holding fair and free elections.

Mr Boucher conceded that the dispute surrounding the voters’ rolls was a “serious issue” and that he had discussed this with Pakistani officials during his recent visit to the country.

US officials, he said, had encouraged the Pakistan election commission to provide lists of voters at election centres where they can be checked readily for duplicate or missing names. In addition, transparent ballot boxes have been distributed, which make it more difficult to stuff them fraudulently.

How the elections are conducted “will help determine whether Pakistan makes a successful transformation into a prosperous and stable democracy,” the assistant secretary said, “and we intend to assist President Musharraf to fulfil his commitment to this goal.”