October 1, 2007	Monday	Ramazan 18, 1428

LAHORE, Sept 30: Gen Pervez Musharraf will win the presidential election with a “comfortable majority” and resignation by opposition lawmakers will not affect the legal position of the polls, the president’s spokesman says.

Maj-Gen (retd) Rashid Qureshi told Dawn on Sunday that resignations would not affect the legal position of the presidential election and voting would be held on Oct 6, as scheduled. “The legitimacy of the presidential election will remain unaffected.”

He said that as long as the National Assembly and the Senate were there, the presidential election could be held. He rejected arguments that large-scale resignations would make it impossible to hold the poll.

However, he asked opposition parties to participate in the electoral process ‘in the interest of the democratic system’.

Parties in the All Parties Democratic Movement have collected resignations from their legislators (54 MNAs and 182 MPAs) and will hand them over to speakers of national and provincial assemblies on Tuesday.

Leaders of the ruling party have been telling the president that he will get about 56 per cent votes in the election.

Mr Qureshi said the opposition parties were supposed to play their role in strengthening the political system. However, he said, nobody could force them to stay in the assemblies.

Asked if the president would try to dissuade the NWFP chief minister from advising dissolution of the provincial legislature, he said the matter would be dealt with by Governor Ali Mohammad Jan Aurakzai. However, he said, the president would want the chief minister not to take such a step.

He indicated that efforts were under way to convince the NWFP chief minister that dissolution of the provincial legislature would not serve any useful purpose.

The president’s spokesman disagreed with a suggestion that many disgruntled ruling party leaders would not vote for Gen Musharraf. He said he had heard that some people were unhappy, but it was not a problem. He said the on-ground situation was entirely in favour of the president.

Mr Qureshi said the verdict of the Supreme Court over the petitions challenging the eligibility of Gen Musharraf should be respected by all sections of the society. He said President Gen Musharraf had accepted the court’s July 20 decision reinstating the Chief Justice of Pakistan.

Referring to Saturday’s protests by lawyers, he said: “Perhaps we lack maturity.”

He said some people were out to create unrest in the country.