July 28, 2006	Friday	Rajab 1, 1427

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LAHORE, July 27: The PML-N leaders and lawyers said here on Thursday the ARD had already decided to launch a movement against the regime in a couple of months which would continue till its ouster.

They said at a reception, hosted by the PML-N Wukala Mahaz on the occasion of joining the forum by 100 lawyers, that the regime had undermined all the institutions and subjected the people to economic miseries as a result of price hike, unemployment and lawlessness which forced the poor to commit suicide.

“The overall socio-economic degradation and the destruction of political and democratic institutions calls for a massive movement against the unconstitutional regime with the support of the people.”

Punjab PML-N president Zulfiqar Khosa, MNA Malik Pervez, Ghulam Dastgir Khan, Birjees Tahir and Wukala Mahaz president Khwaja Mahmood Ahmad were prominent among speakers.

They said the assemblies could not elect the president twice in one term and if Gen Pervez Musharraf attempted to seek another election by the legislature, it would be unconstitutional.

They said the regime feared that the future assembly would not elect Gen Musharraf as the president and this was the reason why the ruling party was insisting on his election by the same legislature.

They said the Charter of Democracy ratified unanimously by the ARD component parties earlier this month, sounded a new hope for the country and the people who were prepared to take to streets to achieve their constitutional and democratic rights. It was on the basis of the pledge given through the charter by the ARD that would ensure the success of the democratic movement, they added.

The charter was important also because all the major political parties had shown the courage of accepting their past mistakes and promising that their conduct would not go beyond the settled democratic principles, they added.

They said the ARD parties might incorporate some features of the charter in the 1973 Constitution to ensure that provincial autonomy was fully guaranteed, the Concurrent List of the Constitution was abolished and provinces given the control of their resources.

The charter promised that the future governance system was ordained strictly in accordance with a genuine federal parliamentary democracy which was the spirit of the constitution and which enjoyed a popular support.

The PML-N leaders condemned the military operation in Balochistan and said the regime was using brute force to destroy political forces of the province.

It was turning the entire province, which was highly sensitive and strategic region, into a cantonment.

They said the regime should go for political and democratic means to tackle the ‘sensitive’ province.