January 21, 2007	Sunday	Muharram 01, 1428

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ISLAMABAD, Jan 20: The People’s Party Parliamentarians (PPP) has categorically rejected the cabinet’s attempt to propose a re- election of General Pervez Musharraf as President for the second time from assemblies that are about to finish their constitutional term.

Central information secretary of the PPP Sherry Rehman in a statement here on Saturday said her party and its partners in the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy (ARD) would never countenance this illegal and unconstitutional re-election as anything but a dictator’s flagrant violation of democratic norms, laws and traditions.

Even though, she said, they did not recognize Gen Musharraf as president, as he got himself selected through an illegal process, in legal terms the president’s term would not expire until December 31, 2008 because Gen Musharraf took his vote of confidence from his “political surrogates” in the assemblies in December 2003.

“All democratic forces in the country are dismayed and appalled at the lengths this regime is willing to go to in order to perpetuate one-man rule in a country crying out for a return to democracy through free and fair elections supervised by a government of national consensus. Instead of bringing neutrality to the vital exercise of an election, which lies at the heart of all democratic systems, if indeed the regime goes for this ill- advised and disastrous move, it will only add more chaos and instability to a nation which stands at the edge of a dangerous political abyss,” said Ms Rehman.

“Instead of allowing democratic governments to heal the polity, and to provide key inputs such as employment, education and health services through better governance, the military regime and its henchmen are threatening to take Pakistan into another, more dangerous phase of uncontrollable instability,” she added.

Ms Rehman said the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) should not only take notice of such irresponsible statements floated by cabinet ministers, it should seek a clarification from all those responsible of spreading controversy on such potentially explosive issues. In a parliamentary system, she said, no outgoing assembly could act as an electoral office for a president seeking self-perpetuation, and neither was an election conducted without competing candidates.