August 24, 2002	Saturday	Jamadi-us-Saani 14, 1423

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LONDON, Aug 23: Pakistan People’s Party Chairperson Benazir Bhutto is launching her party’s election campaign by holding a public meeting at Trafalgar Square on Saturday.

The PPP, UK unit, has made arrangements for transporting party supporters from various cities in Britain to attend the meeting.

Party sources told Dawn that Ms Bhutto was planning to return to Pakistan in two weeks. They said their leader would pursue her bid for re-election, despite threats that she would be arrested on her arrival.

The PPP leader has filed her nomination papers from two constituencies of National Assembly in Larkana. She says if she is barred from contesting the polls, the elections would lack credibility.

“I am sure people will question the credibility of an electoral process where their chosen representative is excluded,” she was quoted as saying in an interview. “I hope to run for premier myself as I am still qualified to contest,” she said.

Ms Bhutto told the British Sky Television on Thursday that she was hopeful of favourable results in the polls. She said allegations of corruption against her were politically motivated. She said the regime feared here popular strength and it was seeking to ban her because it knew “I can get elected.”

“So it makes a mockery of the process if the leading candidate in the country is banned from participating,” she said.

The PPP leader fiercely criticized the constitutional amendments.