April 30, 2002	Tuesday	Safar 16, 1423

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LAHORE, April 29: Gen Pervez Musharraf is set to hold, and win, a referendum on Tuesday amid renewed call by the ARD-APC president and the PPP leadership that the voters should boycott what they called an extra-constitutional farce being staged by the general to give himself another five years in presidency after the October general elections.

This is the first referendum after the one held by the late Gen Ziaul Haq in December 1984 to get a five-year term as president, which had begun with the first session of the parliament on March 23, 1985, elected on non-party basis.

The Tuesday’s referendum has been upheld by the Supreme Court, though Zia’s referendum was not challenged by anyone before or after being held.

All major political parties, including the PPP, the PML(N), the Jamaat-i-Islami, the Jamiat Ulema-i-Pakistan, the JUI(F), the JUI(S), the Jamhoori Watan Party, the Awami National Party and many others in and out of the fold of the ARD or the APC are opposed to the referendum.

However, the PML(QA) led by Mian Muhammad Azhar, the Millat Party, the Pakistan Awami Tehrik, the Tehrik-i-Insaaf, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, the PML (Functional), the National Awami Party Pakistan (NAPP), the Grand Democratic Alliance headed by Mr Hamid Nasir Chattha, and the Qaumi Jamhoori Party of Omar Asghar Khan, are among parties supporting the referendum “in the interest of democracy”.

Gen Musharraf’s assertion that only his supporters would win the October elections has served as an incentive for many parties to throw their weight behind the general. They have mobilized the masses and used all resources to get popular support for the military ruler with whose victory they link up their own future.

On the other hand, though the anti-referendum parties have a sizable vote bank — and it was for this reason that the PPP and the PML had been alternating each other in power between 1988 and 1999 — President Musharraf expressed his confidence several times that his supporters would outnumber the opponents.

“Everything would become clear on April 30”, he said in a recent interview with Dawn when he was asked to identify his supporters in the face of such strong opponents.

The president had first given indications about the referendum at meetings with various political leaders. But he made a formal announcement on April 5. Thereafter, he addressed public meetings in many important cities of the four provinces. To win support, he announced several projects for various cities and provinces, the cost of which runs into billions of rupees.

District governments were asked to use funds at their disposal to organize public