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LAHORE, April 30: Jamaat-i-Islami amir Qazi Husain Ahmad greeted the nation on Tuesday for boycotting what he said called a bogus referendum.
He said the low voter turnout had exposed President Gen Pervez Musharraf’s claims of popularity among the masses. The president, he said, should now respect the public opinion and withdraw the armed forces from the political arena.
The boycott, despite a blatant use of state resources, he said, depicted that the people wanted to see the armed forces out of the power corridors.
The Qazi demanded early formation of an interim government and an independent and autonomous Election Commission for the restoration of democracy and constitutional rule.
JI naib amir Liaquat Baloch said campaigning by Nazims had ignored the local government law providing for non-political local bodies. He said the people had clearly rejected Gen Musharraf’s policies to promote secularism and US hegemony in the region.
He said the way the referendum was held had made the role of the Election Commission controversial.
PPP: Pakistan People’s Party’s Punjab president Qasim Zia told at a press conference that the masses had rejected the ‘reform agenda’ of Gen Musharraf by abstaining from the referendum.
He alleged that government departments had threatened the management of big industrial concerns to initiate action against unless they forced their workers to vote in the referendum.
Demanding immediate resignation of Musharraf government, PPP’s central information secretary Altaf Qureshi said April 30 had proved the day of no-confidence against the army government.
Naveed Chaudhry demanded setting up of a national government and holding of free, fair and transparent elections to hand over governance to the majority party.
Answering a question, Mr Zia said the decision regarding participation in the elections if the army government did not resign would be taken by the Alliance for Restoration of Democracy. However, he hastened to add that his party would leave no option open to them (the government).
Asked if the PPP would launch a movement against the government in case the latter tried to change the results of the referendum, he said political parties had been organizing the public opinion. This, he said, had shaped the referendum outcome.
Replying to another question, he denied that Ms Benazir Bhutto wanted to strike a bargain with the government.
LPP: Labour Party Pakistan secretary general Farooq Tariq told a press conference his party’s monitoring teams had reported a complete boycott of referendum by industrial workers.
Describing this as a no-confidence against Musharraf, he said the working class had rejected the reforms agenda being implemented in the country on the instructions of the International Montetory Fund and the World Bank.
