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| 27 May 2004 | Thursday | 07 Rabi-us-Saani 1425 |
Mushahid named secretary-general: PML office-bearers appointed
ISLAMABAD May 26: Pakistan Muslim League president Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain on Wednesday named office-bearers of the newly unified PML after a meeting with President Pervez Musharraf, with the key secretary-general's office going to former information minister Mushahid Hussain Syed.
Other office-bearers named at a news conference in the evening included seven senior vice-presidents who were heads of parties which have merged into the PML or their representatives.
Chaudhry Shujaat said he had met the president in the morning and discussed several issues with him, including the party organization. "We discussed all issues including party matters as he (president) is part of parliament," Chaudhry Shujaat said.
But he told a questioner that the issue of the president's uniform did not figure in the meeting. Asked if the president intended to take over the party's command after shedding his uniform which he is supposed to do by the end of the year, he said: "He has never expressed his desire (to do so) in any of his meetings so far".
The most dramatic appointment is that of Senator Mushahid Hussain, to an office in which even Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali was interested and which other contenders included former PML-Q secretary-general Salim Saifullah and former foreign minister Gohar Ayub Khan.
The nominations came while Prime Minister Jamali was on a visit to Saudi Arabia. Chaudhry Shujaat said the party had decided to nominate heads of all factions which had merged into the PML as senior vice-presidents.
They are: Religious Affairs Minister Ijazul Haq (of PML-Z), Information Technology Minister Awais Leghari (son of defunct National Alliance leader and former president Sardar Farooq Ahmed Khan Leghari), Ghulam Murtaza Jatoi (NPP), Dr Arbab Ghulam Rahim and Imtiaz Sheikh (both former chiefs of their own factions of Sindh Democratic Alliance), Mian Manzoor Wattoo (PML-Jinnah) and Sultan Mehmood Khan (PML-F).
The PML president said that former PML-J chief Hamid Nasir Chattha had declined to accept any party office and his nominee would be made a vice-president at a later stage. Senator Tariq Azeem was named information secretary of the party, the same office he had held in the defunct PML-Q.
Iqbal Dar of the defunct PML-J and Senator Nisar A. Memon were made additional secretary-generals of the party. Prime minister's adviser for women development, social welfare and special education Nilofar Bakhtiar retained her PML-Q office of women's wing president with Rehana Alam Mashadi as secretary-general of the wing.
Chaudhry Shujaat said decisions about central office-bearers were made at a party meeting held after his meeting with President Musharraf. He said nomination of 1,500 members of the party general council, by accommodating all factions and groups, had been finalized while a 200-member central working committee and a 30-member central executive committee would also be constituted.
The PML chief said the decision to name Mushahid Hussain as secretary-general and spokesman was taken by consensus in Wednesday's meeting. Asked why both the top party offices of the president and the secretary-general had gone to Punjab, Chaudhry Shujaat said that by nominating Mr Mushahid he wanted to give a message that regional and provincial considerations ought to be done away with. "We have made prime minister (Jamali) from a smaller province under the same considerations."
He told a questioner that an amendment to the Political Parties Order would be introduced in the upcoming National Assembly session. He said he had made nominations using the authority given to him in a resolution of the unified PML's general council while elections to these offices would be held when a meeting of the new general council was held.
Speaking on the occasion Mushahid Hussain said it was a great honour for him to become the secretary-general of what he called the country's largest party with 'roots in all parts of the country'. He said the party would be run in the spirit of team-work to take it into the next elections in 2007 as the strongest contender for power.
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