PESHAWAR, April 22: Chief of the Pakistan People’s Party (Hoti) Khwaja Mohammad Khan has said that he will decide about joining the Awami National Party after meeting ANP chief Asfandyar Wali Khan.

Talking to journalists on Saturday, the PPP leader said his friends had some conditions for joining the ANP. He said he would join the ANP as a worker.

He said 2007 would be the year of general elections as President Gen Pervez Musharraf and politicians had no other way out.

“The politicians should not object if President Musharraf takes a vote of confidence from the present assembly, as it will not harm the democratic process,” he said. He said the present parliamentarians had been elected under the Legal Framework Order and they should not object to a vote of confidence for the president.

He said that if the politicians wanted to safeguard the rights of people, they should approach the masses instead of protesting in the assemblies.

“Gen Musharraf is a military dictator but the present politicians are civilian dictators,” he said. He said the public had no say in affairs of the parties. “Whenever someone disobeys the orders of his party’s top leaders, he is kicked out for following his conscience,” he said.

He said he had been associated with the PPP for 19 years, but when he sought action against those who sold their votes in the 2002 Senate election he was asked to apologise.

When asked about corruption charges against former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, he said some of the current ministers were also corrupt. He said the National Accountability Bureau should hold across the board accountability and political victimisation should be stopped.

He said the Pakistan Muslim League and President Musharraf were indispensable for each other.