September 22, 2007	Saturday	Ramazan 09, 1428

LAHORE, Sept 21: The Pakistan People’s Party rejected as premature the decisions taken by the All Parties Democratic Movement (APDM) on Friday and apprehended that they would backfire.

PPP secretary-general Raja Pervaiz Ashraf said that his party would not take any decision in haste. “We’ll first wait for a decision on petitions being heard by the Supreme Court. Then we’ll call a meeting of the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy and take appropriate decisions,” he said.

He said his party would consider the option of resigning from assemblies only if the government did not accept the demands of PPP chairperson Benazir Bhutto.

Mr Ashraf said his party wanted a smooth transition from military dictatorship to democracy through free and fair elections and would not let the rulers wriggle out.

But, he regretted, the APDM had quite a different strategy because of which the nascent coalition could break up.

The PPP leader advised the opposition parties not to rely very heavily on the courts. He pointed out that the apex court had already stated that the parliament should settle its own matters, which clearly meant that the judiciary would not go beyond certain limits.Mr Ashraf dismissed veiled threats by some ministers that another martial law or state of emergency could be declared in case the presidential election was blocked.

He said the government would not be able to use both these options, even as a last resort.

Martial law or emergency, he said, would not help the rulers because such a step would take the country back by many decades.