Last week, Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf officially stepped out of his military uniform.

It's a significant step for the former general, who took control of the country in a military coup eight years ago. But the state of emergency still remains, which has political parties concerned that January's elections will not be free and fair.

The emergency measures are expected to be lifted in two weeks time, when journalists in the country hope they'll be free to write and broadcast again. Among those feeling the full-force of President Musharraf's grip on power has been the independent television network, GEO TV.

Both its news and sports channels have been taken off the air, and the network's president, Imran Aslam, is accusing the government of trying to shut down GEO TV permanently. But despite the restrictions, Mr Aslam says his 24-hour news channel has still been able to reach the people through mobile phones and the internet.

Edmund Roy speaks to Imran Aslam in Karachi.

Edmund Roy: Imran Aslam, welcome to the program.

Imran Aslam, President, GEO TV: Thank you.

Edmund Roy: Firstly, will General Musharraf's decision to give up his uniform diminish his power in any way?

Imran Aslam: We'll have to see exactly what sort of controls he will have on the military, which was, essentially, his constituency. So, we have to see to what extent he will continue to have the same sort of authority with his own core commanders, who he has picked himself, and with the army chief, who is also somebody that he, actually, picked personally.

Edmund Roy: And what is the current thinking in Pakistan? Will he have the kind of control he had when he was in uniform?

Imran Aslam: I think, essentially, we've always moved on whenever a situation like this has arisen. And we've moved on into a situation where we have a troika, where the army chief, the President and the Prime Minister then always start jostling for power.

This has been one of the problems, and a cause of turbulence in Pakistan's history, where the centres of power keep shifting, and the military is then called upon to try and intervene and play the role of arbitrator, and eventually they step in and take power.

Edmund Roy: Has General Musharraf's actions, including the imposition of the emergency, done long-term damage to Pakistan?

Imran Aslam: I think, you know, in the period where he launched the emergency, what we saw was the sacking of the judges and that in itself was a very, very big-blow to an institution that had begun to assert itself, and to become slightly more active.

The judiciary has been very pliant in Pakistan in the past, and has always been on the side of the executive, but in this particular case it was a stand-off. I think that was one major area where it will take a long time for us to recover.

The second one, of course, is his attempt to roll back the media and to control it, so that, you know, the next elections, which essentially will be fought on a 28-inch screen, can be controlled, and can be administered from Islamabad. I think, this is also going to cause a fair amount of damage to some of the progress that we saw being made by this regime.

Edmund Roy: Let's look at the judiciary - he's now got, what is essentially, a hand-picked group of people heading the Supreme Court. How long can he exercise that kind of power over the institution?

Imran Aslam: Well, the judiciary is hand-picked, but the previous one was also hand-picked, most of the judges have sworn their allegiance on, what we call, the Provisional Constitutional Order. But eventually, when the chips were down, they began to assert themselves.

”The judiciary came to haunt him.”

I think, this is something that happens time and time again because you do create Frankenstein monsters as you go along, and, I think, the judiciary came to haunt him when the time came for him to try and legitimise his rule, and the time came for him to take off his uniform and become a civilian president. And there were a lot of constitutional issues that needed to be debated in the Supreme Court. It was felt, within the administration, that, perhaps, it wouldn't be smooth sailing, and that most of the thinking in Pakistan is the reason why Musharraf moved against the judges.

Edmund Roy: The one area that he hasn't been able to hand-pick anyone appears to be the media. How has the state of emergency affected your operations?

Imran Aslam: Well, as we speak, we are the last ones standing. Most of the other channels have been allowed to go back on air, in fact, all of them have. GEO is the only one which has been stopped and completely blocked, not only ... GEO television news service, but also our sports channel, our entertainment channel and our youth channel.

So, it seems as if, we are being targeted specifically, and there is an attempt to financially cripple GEO, so, that, at the end of the day, we count out, and we also tow the line that is being put to us.

Edmund Roy: So, if you are continuing to be muscled, what sort of impact will that have on any transition to democracy?

Imran Aslam: I think, this question should be asked of the administration which has chosen to do this, because, at the moment, the livelihood of thousands of workers who are with GEO are at stake.

The funny thing is, we had the exclusive rights to show the cricket match between India and Pakistan and this has also been blocked. We are in court, we're trying to fight the battle in the courts itself, and today we were there again. I've just come from the courts, and the High Court, here in Sindh, has said they will hear us again on the fourth of December, thereby, continuing with our problem of trying to keep afloat.

Edmund Roy: How do you proceed then, how do you operate? Does technology help, for instance the internet, mobile phones and so on?

”Once news became a contraband item, obviously, it needed to be smuggled out.”

Imran Aslam: We've used all the methods. I mean, once news became a contraband item, obviously, it needed to be smuggled out, and what we've tried to do was to use all the modern technologies available to us.

So, there's the telephone, there are SMS messages that go around and alerts that go around, and we have continued from day one, even after the bi-media city, where were uplinking from, was leaned upon by the government to stop our transmissions. We have continued to show minute by minute what is happening in Pakistan with exactly the same format on the internet.

It is an absolutely marvellous situation because the type of hits we're getting shows that people want to get to the news, and they know that they have to get to GEO, for instance, to get, what they believe to be, authentic news.

Edmund Roy: Now, despite being out of the country for a long period of time, Nawaz Sharif appears to have some support within Pakistan. How have the people of Pakistan reacted to his return?

Imran Aslam: I think, generally, people are quite happy that he's back in town because, I think, one of things that was very, very important was if an election was to take place, then it had to take place with all the political parties in the fray. I think, Nawaz Sharif coming back has been a good omen for the government.

Edmund Roy: Imran Aslam, thank you for joining us on 'Asia Pacific Focus'.

Imran Aslam: Thank you.