KARACHI, Dec 27: The Pakistan People's Party leader Asif Ali Zardari has expressed the hope that the PPP would win 60 per cent seats from Karachi in the next general elections, which he believed would be held in 2005.

"We are not from genre of people who don't participate in election on a single phone call from a general," he stated.

Talking to a delegation of the Awam Dost nazims, and naib nazims of towns, union councils and members of the City District Council, led by Saeed Ghani, who is also the leader of the group in the CDC, Mr Zardari said it was the PPP which initiated the largest development projects in Karachi.

In future too the PPP would continue to strive for the development of the city, he said. Mr Zardari, paying tribute to the slain party leaders from Karachi, Munawar Suharwardy and Abdullah Murad, said they were in the forefront in the party's struggle for democracy.

Later, talking to another delegation of MPAs, district presidents and general secretaries of the PPP in the NWFP, he said he had planned to go to the province after visiting Rawalpindi, but the government got scared of his arrival in Islamabad. Routes leading to NWFP and Punjab were sealed on that day by putting barricades on Attock bridge, he added.