May 14, 2006	Sunday	Rabi-us-Sani 15, 1427

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PESHAWAR, May 13: The People’s Party Parliamentarians has said the Charter of Democracy, prepared by the leaders of the PPP and the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), will strengthen political culture of the country.

PPP provincial chief Rahimdad Khan told a news conference at the Peshawar Press Club on Saturday that it was a good omen for the country that both the major political forces had agreed on a political accord for strengthening democracy.

He said the PPP and the PML-N had set precedence for other political parties to join hands against the dictatorship.

He welcomed Iftikharuddin Khattak, a former provincial minister from Lachi, Kohat, who announced his joining of the PPP.

Mr Khattak said the PPPP was a genuine political force with roots in the masses and had survived a number of military dictators, who tried to dismantle it but they themselves had become an alien thing for the people.

He said the PPP had been a harbinger of socio-political change in the country and would remove all forms of military dictatorships from the country in the future.

Mr Rahimdad said: “It has been a practice that people join a ruling party, but those who have conscience have opted to join the PPP. The party leadership has been and is a victim of state propaganda, but the political workers are flocking towards as it is the only political party which has challenged the trite system and its parasites sitting in Islamabad”.

He said the PPP might have agreed on a power grabbing formula with the PML-N, but it had preferred to focus on restoration of sustainable democracy in the country.

Both the parties would work for strengthening political culture and tolerate each other if any one of them came into power, he added.

PPP leader Masood Kausar said Mr Khattak would prove be an asset for the party in Kohat district. He added they would organise a reception for him in Kohat.

PPP provincial senior vice-president Syed Qamar Abbas said it was an encouraging moment for the party that popular and honest politicians had started joining it.

He said the PPP could steer the country out of manifold crises confronting it.

Mr Abbas said the incumbent clique of autocrats had turned the country into their fiefdom and was selling out profit-giving industrial units to habitual bank defaulters.

Fareed Toofan said genuine and popular forces should gather around the PPP to bring a positive political change in the country.