Pakistan President Musharraf sails through confidence vote.

(From Agence France Presse)

Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf won another major victory, securing a parliamentary vote of confidence that legitimises until 2007 the unelected rule of the general who stormed to power in a bloodless 1999 coup.

"Musharraf has won a majority vote in the national assembly. There was not a single vote against him," Information Minister Sheikh Rashid told AFP. The 100-seat senate earlier gave 56 votes to Musharraf.

The trust vote enables Musharraf, Pakistan's army chief and an ex-commando, to avoid a standard election to the presidency, to which he appointed himself in June 2001 after toppling an elected government in the army coup.

In the past three weeks General Musharraf has escaped two near-miss assassination attempts and won a crippling year-long battle with opposition parties over his self-appointed rule and controversial power to sack the parliament.

On Monday the lower house approved a major amendment to Pakistan's 1973 constitution, which legitimises Musharraf's parliament-sacking powers and enshrines all laws he made after the coup.

It also requires him to quit his army chief post by the end of the year.