July 05, 2006	Wednesday	Jumadi-ul-Sani 8, 1427

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QUETTA, July 4: Pakistan Muslim League Senator Malik Sarwar Kakar has claimed that the party will re-elect Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain as its chief and rejected reports of differences in the PML on the issue of leadership.

He was addressing a news conference on Tuesday at the press club where two tribal elders, Nasibullah Khan Tareen from Ziarat and Syed Ahmed Jan Agha from Pishin, joined the party.

The PML leader claimed that the Balochistan people had trust in the leadership of President Gen Pervez Musharraf.

He rejected the demand of the Alliance for Restoration of Democracy that President Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz should quit by July 31 and said that the demand did not have people’s support.

Mr Kakar said that the ARD had the right to present its point of view and oppose the government policies but it was unrealistic for it to ask the majority party in the assembly to resign without presenting any sound reason for it.

He said that if the former two prime ministers, who had signed the charter of democracy, had presented the programme during their governments, political and democratic institutions would have been functioning in a better way today.

Answering a question that mega development projects in Balochistan excluded the Pushtoon areas of the province, he said that it was the responsibility of Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal leaders who had won polls in the Pushtoon areas to develop good working relations with the centre for launching a development programme in the area.

Answering another question as to why the PML leadership was backing an army dictator, Mr Kakar said that the ‘accommodation’ strategy was necessary for continuation of political system.

He said that basic reason of army intervention in politics was the failure of politicians to tolerate each other’s governments.

Answering yet another question, he said that the Pushtuns were facing problems owing to lack of political leadership and added that the nationalists had failed to deliver as they had offered hollow slogans only.