February 28, 2002	Thursday	Zilhaj 15, 1422

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KOHAT, Feb 27: Pakistan Muslim League (Q) member and former PPP federal minister Syed Iftikhar Hussain Gilani has proposed that future prime minister should be from the smaller provinces other than Sindh.

Prime ministers in the past 50 years were from either Punjab or Sindh and now it is the turn of other smaller provinces, he said, while making an announcement at a meet-the-press programme here on Wednesday that he would contest the coming general election from Kohat NA-9 on the ticket of the PML-Q.

Mr Gilani, who recently joined the PML-Q, remarked that the smaller provinces felt deprived because for most of the period in the country’s history, the posts of the president and the prime minister had remained with Punjab and “even today, the all powerful president belongs to Punjab.”

He came hard on Benazir Bhutto and Mian Nawaz Sharif who, he said, had left their party workers in the lurch while living abroad to escape accountability.

He said he had developed differences with Ms Bhutto a year back when he had asked her to come back and face the corruption charges “but instead she took it personal.”

He quoted Ms Bhutto, the chairperson of the Pakistan People’s Party, as having claimed that without the Bhutto family, nobody could run the party or was eligible to become its head.

Mr Gilani observed that Ms Bhutto was totally wrong while making a comparison between Altaf Hussain and herself because Mr Hussain represented an ethnic group and was not in exile due to any corruption charges.

He said he had decided to support President Pervez Musharraf for his “sane” policies, which saved the country from becoming isolate in the international community.

Sheheryar Afridi, director of a think tank engaged in Pakistan’s image building in the international media, also announced that he would contest the election from Kohat NA-9 from the platform of the PML-Q.