LAHORE, Aug 5: All Parties Democratic Movement (APDM) leaders said here on Sunday the newly-formed alliance will soon give a call for a long march to Islamabad as part of its `mass movement’ against the military regime.

Speaking at the first APDM workers’ convention, they said the alliance, comprising 30 opposition parties, had already launched a movement with the immediate goal of ridding the country of military rule and the establishment of a caretaker government of national consensus to hold the general elections.

Awami National Party secretary-general Ehsan Wyne, Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal Punjab president Liaquat Baloch, Jamat-i-Islami Lahore ‘amir’ hafiz Salman Butt, Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaaf Lahore president Mohammad Shabbir Syal, Khaksar Tehreek chief Hameeduddin Al-Mashriqi, MNA Farid Piracha and Jamaat-i-Islami spokesperson Ameerul Azeem said the opposition did not expect the military ruler to hold free, fair and transparent elections.

The Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) was conspicuous by its absence from the convention.

Hundreds of workers belonging to APDM component parties attended the convention, which was held outside the JI’s Lahore office at Lytton Road, chanting slogans and displaying placards inscribed with slogans seeking resignation of Gen Musharraf and condemning the regime’s policies which, they held, were devised to promote American agenda in this part of the world.

Ehsan Wyne said the regime had usurped the rights of the people and the military operations in Balochistan, NWFP and tribal areas were driving the country to a situation where its security and unity could be jeopardised. He was of the view that Gen Musharraf had to quit as he had become a security risk by toeing policies which only served the US political and economic agenda in South Asia.

He also lambasted the regime for consistently denying the right to provincial autonomy and failing in giving the resources of federating units to the provinces.

He said a strong centre was against the constitutional requirements of the federation and it caused disintegration of the country in 1971.

Liaquat Baloch said the government’s policies had resulted in widening of the gulf between the people and the armed forces which were facing criticism for the first time in the country’s 60-year history.

He hoped that the APDM’s first public meeting in Rawalpindi’s Liaquat Bagh on August 14 would be beginning of a mass movement which would ultimately bring the dictatorial rule in the country to an end.