Islamabad, Pakistan ? Police swept the Pakistani capital Saturday to arrest the leaders of opposition parties vowing to obstruct President Gen. Pervez Musharraf’s re-election bid, officials said.

Security officials said police in Islamabad had orders to take some 35 opposition leaders into preventive custody – many of them linked to the prime minister overthrown by Musharraf or a coalition of Islamist parties opposed to the president’s alliance with the United States.

Police served a warrant on Javed Hashmi, acting president of Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim league-N, at an apartment complex for lawmakers in the government district. The warrant said he would be jailed for 30 days to stop him from making inflammatory speeches at protests where “miscreants” could “cause disruption and acts of sabotage and terrorism.”

Hashmi, who was not immediately led away, said Musharraf’s Western backers should press the military-led government to uphold the same democratic standards that they enjoy.

“They are ruling the country with the gun in hand,” Hashmi told an Associated Press reporter at his apartment, where four armed police stood guard outside. “They think that the (military) uniform, not the people of Pakistan, are the source of power.”

Several police vehicles left the apartment complex about midnight Saturday. Hashmi said at least 15 other opposition politicians were detained.

Among them were deputies of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who was ousted in Musharraf’s 1999 coup and is now exiled, along with members of religious parties are spearheading opposition to the general’s plan to ask for a new five-year term in a ballot of federal and provincial lawmakers on Oct. 6.

Saturday’s sweep mirrored the tactics used to ensure no crowds turned out to welcome Sharif when he tried to return from exile Sept. 10. Hundreds of opposition activists were briefly jailed to prevent them reaching Islamabad airport, and Sharif was swiftly expelled to Saudi Arabia.