"The international community needs to decide whether it will go with one man or the people of Pakistan," Bhutto told AP by telephone Tuesday from the house where she is being held in the city of Lahore.

Musharraf says emergency rule is needed to curb political unrest that he says is hampering the government's fight against militants along the border with Afghanistan.

Critics contend the Nov. 3 emergency decree was a cover to oust independent-minded judges who had crimped Musharraf's powers. They call his move outright martial law since authorities have unchecked power to detain opponents.

Bhutto, a secularist who has served as prime minister twice, is trapped in a padlocked house surrounded by hundreds of police. Approach roads are blocked with trucks and metal barricades lined by barbed wire.

Her detention prevented her from staging a protest procession to the capital, Islamabad. The procession went ahead but was quickly stopped by police, and security forces also clashed with anti-government protesters in other cities.

Bhutto said thousands of her supporters were rounded up, although officials denied detentions on such a large scale.

"I'm calling for Gen. Musharraf to step down, to quit, to leave, to end martial law," she said. "Pakistan is a nuclear-armed country. We cannot afford this kind of chaos and instability."

"I could not serve as prime minister with Gen. Musharraf as president. I wish I could," she added.

Musharraf countered that Bhutto "has no right" to ask him to resign, and said in an interview with The New York Times on Tuesday that she was exaggerating her popular support.

"Let's start the elections and let's see whether she wins," Musharraf was quoted as saying.

Bhutto said she would work to forge an opposition alliance including Sharif, a longtime rival and former prime minister who shares her desire to make a political comeback.

Sharif tried to return to Pakistan in September to prepare his party for the January parliamentary elections, but was immediately deported despite a Pakistani Supreme Court ruling that he could stay.

Speaking to AP from exile in Saudi Arabia, Sharif welcomed Bhutto's comments and urged opposition parties to unite against Musharraf, to "fight dictatorship."

Musharraf has set no time limit for emergency rule. He signaled Sunday that he wants to hold elections while keeping his ban on rallies and suspension of other rights, raising major doubts about the vote's credibility.

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