12 April 2004	Monday	21 Safar 1425

LAHORE, April 11: Pir Pagara resumed his role as president of Pakistan Muslim League (Functional) on Sunday, predicting that 2005 would the year of elections and the present assemblies would be dissolved prematurely, as has been the fate of all legislatures in the past.

Several months back, the Sindhi leader had handed over the party control for health reasons to Khan Sultan Mehmud Khan, appointing him as acting president. However, the party's central council at a meeting here on Sunday reposed confidence in the leadership of Pir Pagara who seemed to have overcome all medical problems.

Pir Pagara warned if religious leaders tried to create any problem, the country would either face a new martial law or the prime minister would personally request the president to take over power. As for the future of the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal, he said, it was similar to an ablution, which may end any time.

The Pir said a solution to the problems facing the country at present lay in, what he called, a benevolent martial law. He believed that the present system could not deliver.

He reiterated that the country's chief executive could better run the PML by assuming its presidency. But, he said, it was not clear whether at present the powers of the chief executive were with the president or the prime minister.

He said personally he had nothing against Shujaat Husain. But, he said, he was accepting him as president of the unified PML just like Britain had accepted crippled Ghulam Muhammad as governor-general of Pakistan. He said Shujaat was man of several qualities.

The PML-F president saw no future for the former Punjab chief minister Shahbaz Sharif, who was planning to come back to Pakistan. However, he said, the PML-N president's fate would be decided by the army.

Asked if he saw any chance for Ms Benazir Bhutto to reach some agreement with the government, Pir Pagara said she would have to face the cases pending against her. He predicted that on her return to Pakistan, the former prime minister could be put in jail and her incarcerated husband sent abroad.

Thus the one free at the moment would go behind bars and the one behind bars at present would win freedom, he said of the fate of Ms Bhutto and her spouse. He said it was for Gen Musharraf to decide whether or not to take off his military uniform. The central council approved the planned unification of all factions of the PML.