KARACHI, Aug 18: Syed Shah Mardan Shah Pir Pagara, spiritual leader of Hur Jamaat, has been re-elected as president of the Pakistan Muslim League (Functional) for the next five years.

The party’s central council, comprising 400 members from all over the country, which met at the Kingri House on Saturday, empowered the party chief as per the PML’s constitutional provision to nominate other central office-bearers and members of its central executive committee.

Justice (retd) Thaeem, who was the chief election commissioner of the party, announced the election result for the office of the PML-F president.

The election commissioner said that he had received papers for one candidate only in which Pir Pagara was nominated for the office by the president of PML-F, Punjab chapter, Makhdoom Ahmad Mehmood, and seconded by the Secretary-General PML-F, Sindh chapter, Nawab Rashid Ali Khan.

Speaking on the occasion, Pir Pagara expressed gratitude for the confidence reposed in his leadership and assured the party members that they would not regret their decision. Known for making enigmatic statements, he told the gathering: “Now when democracy will be restored in the country, your party man will be the next prime minister”. Recalling the non-party election of 1985 when Pagara had prophesied that the prime minister would be chosen from his party, he said that many of the party members did not believe his words which later proved prophetic.

He said that the possibility of an agreement with the PML-N could not be ruled out. Extending his support to Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali in his efforts to unite the various factions of the Muslim League, he said that ultimately the PML had to reunite so as to strengthen the country.

The PML-F chief urged his party members to strengthen the party by taking it to the grassroots level and leave the matter of government formation to him and advised them to refrain from rallying and holding demonstrations.

Commenting on the deal between President General Pervez Musharraf and PPP chairperson Benazir Bhutto, he said that it was an agreement between two needy persons and would be broken by Benazir Bhutto.

Earlier, Makhdoom Ahmad Mehmood, Pir Sadruddin Shah Rashdi, Mian Muhammad Akhtar Shafi and Musharraf Khan Khoso, presidents of PML-F Punjab, Sindh, the NWFP and Balochistan, Kanwar Qutbuddin, Speaker Sindh Assembly Syed Muzaffar Hussain Shah, party leader Imtiaz Ahmad Shaikh, and Khan Sultan Mehmood also spoke.