LAHORE, Sept 24: Lawyers have nominated Justice (retd) Wajihuddin Ahmad as a candidate for the presidential election mainly to get Gen Pervez Musharraf disqualified by the judiciary, according to a senior lawyer who played a role in bringing the former chief justice of the Sindh High Court in the electoral field.

“We are trying to block the election of a usurper. Justice Wajihuddin

will no longer run for the office of

the president if the general is disqualified for the job by the Supreme

Court, which is already hearing several petitions against him,” Hamid Khan,

a former president of the Supreme Court Bar Association, told this correspondent on Monday.

PPP-Parliamentarians’ president Makhdoom Amin Fahim said his party would examine implications of the lawyers’ initiative and decide on the issue of a presidential candidate on Tuesday.

Mr Khan did not agree with the suggestion that Justice Wajihuddin’s nomination for election from the present assemblies would nullify the lawyers’ stand that at the end of their five-year term, the existing legislatures were not competent to elect anyone for a five-year term.

He said it was possible that instead of deciding the petitions challenging Gen Musharraf’s eligibility at this stage, the Supreme Court might ask the petitioners to first take up the matter with the Chief Election Commissioner. This would be the time when the lawyers’ presidential candidate would play his role.

Justice Wajihuddin, he said, would challenge the credentials of the general for the top office with the CEC, and thus the matter would go back to the apex court for a final decision.

He said lawyers would arrange a proposer and seconder for their candidate “through an understanding with some political party which has representation in the Senate”. He did not elaborate.

“We’ll not seek votes from political parties. We only want to set the ball rolling and have the general thrown out of the electoral arena,” said Mr Khan.

When it was pointed out that the opposition parties would be negating their own stand by supporting Justice Wajihuddin’s candidature as they had consistently been saying that the present assemblies could not elect another president, Mr Khan said that a party allowing its legislators to propose or second the former judge would only be expressing solidarity with the lawyers’ community.

Lawyers, he said, would welcome the political parties’ decision to quit the assemblies.

“Don’t you think that in your struggle to get undiluted democracy and restore the rule of law you are likely to lose what little you already have?” he was asked.

Mr Khan said the nation could not afford to be blackmailed any more by threats of another martial law. The existing system was nothing but martial law and thus the nation had nothing to lose even if there was another intervention.

He said it would be in the interest of the nation if the general resigned.

Makhdoom Amin Fahim said the PPP had a very consistent stand that the party would not support Gen Musharraf if he contested the election in uniform.

He said the lawyers’ opinion on the competence of the existing assemblies to elect a new president was divided.