PESHAWAR, Sept 24: All seven lawmakers of the Awami National Party in the NWFP assembly submitted their resignations to ANP parliamentary leader Bashir Ahmed Bilour at a news conference, here on Monday.

Speaking to journalists at the Peshawar Press Club, Mr Bilour said that his party would act in accordance with the APDM’s decision regarding the controversial presidential election.

He said his party MPAs, who had held a meeting at the Bacha Khan Markaz on Monday, submitted their resignations to him, which he would hand over to the NWFP assembly speaker at an appropriate time.

ANP lawmakers Yasmeen Pir Mohammad, Farah Aqil Shah, Mukhtiar Khan, Amir Rakhman, Shaukat Habib and Khalil Abbas were also present on the occasion. The ANP had expelled three of its MPAs Sarfaraz Khan Jadoon, Qalb-i-Hasan and Atiqur Rehman on various charges after the Senate elections.

He said the ANP was a component party of the APDM and it would follow all decisions taken by the alliance for the restoration of democracy in the country.

He said Gen Pervez Musharraf wanted to be elected unconstitutionally, immorally and unlawfully at any cost and the opposition had no other option but to resign from assemblies to block his illegal move.

“If the NWFP chief minister dissolves the provincial assembly, it will weaken the electoral college, comprising National Assembly, Senate and all the four provincial assemblies”.

He said lawyers, political workers and civil society activists had resisted the removal of the Chief Justice of Pakistan by launching a mass movement for the independence of judiciary, but political parties had yet to achieve the goal of real democratic dispensation in the country.

The APDM, he said, was struggling hard to bring the rule of the military dictatorship to an end in the country. He said the government had launched a crackdown on politicians by putting them in prisons to ensure the success of Gen Musharraf in the election.

He said the ANP had always made sacrifices for its principles and for the right of the people.

Lauding the commitment of the party lawmakers, ANP provincial president Afrasiab Khattak said that time had come to decide whether the armed forces or democratically-elected representatives of the people would rule the country.

He said: “The president is the symbol of unity of the federation, but the NWFP, being a federating unit, is opposed to the re-election of Gen Musharraf as president. If one federating unit does not take part in the election, it means the president’s electoral college is incomplete.”