ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) -- The president dismissed Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto's government Tuesday and called for new elections, bowing to longtime pressure from political rivals who accuse Ms. Bhutto of corruption and mismanagement.

Four provincial legislatures have been dismissed, and the president has named a former stalwart of Ms. Bhutto's party, Miraj Khalid, as interim prime minister.

Soldiers, rifles slung over their shoulders, stood guard outside Ms. Bhutto's residence and spilled into the white marble Parliament building in Islamabad, the capital.

Troops also sealed the country's airports and stood guard outside the Pakistan Television building several blocks from the legislature.

There were initial reports that Ms. Bhutto's husband and investment minister, Asif Ali Zardari, had been arrested in the provincial Punjab capital, Lahore, where the army was also deployed. Zardari has been at the center of the scandals.

A former ally of Ms. Bhutto's, President Farooq Leghari called for new elections to be held Feb. 3. "An appeal to the electorate is necessary," the president said in a statement carried by Pakistan's state-run news agency.

Ms. Bhutto has denied the charges against her. She recently had warned of ``a conspiracy against democracy in Pakistan," and had vowed to complete her term due to end in 1998.

Opposition parties have repeatedly urged the president to appoint a neutral caretaker government and call fresh elections. They criticize Ms. Bhutto for not curbing ethnic and religious violence and for failing to rein in special interest groups.

In his statement, the president accused Ms. Bhutto of attacking the country's judicial system. For several months she has been fighting a recent Supreme Court decision that gives the president the power to appoint judges rather than the prime minister and Parliament.

Ms. Bhutto called an emergency meeting of her dismissed National Assembly members early Tuesday in Islamabad.

"The prime minister has received this letter from the president informing her that the national assembly has been dissolved," her spokesman, Farhatullah Babar said.

This is the second time Ms. Bhutto has been dismissed from power. Her first term ended in 1990 after only 20 months in office -- then, too, she was accused of runaway corruption and incompetence. She used mass demonstrations to orchestrate the early dismissal of her successor, Nawaz Sharif, and regained office in 1993.

Since then, she has faced sectarian violence, her own brother's death in a hail of police bullets, and the relentless violence in Karachi, the country's biggest city and financial capital.

The economy has taken a downward turn, with the International Monetary Fund withholding $80 million in emergency money until Pakistan reduces its deficit to 4 percent by next year.