October 05, 2007	Friday	Ramazan 22, 1428

LAHORE, Oct 4: Civil society and political parties will show their resentment against what they called ‘sham’ presidential elections by observing a complete shutter-down on Oct 6 (Saturday).

Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and All Parties Democratic Movement (APDM) leaders stated this during separate press conferences here on Thursday.

PML-N leader and MNA Khwaja Saad Rafiq, who had tendered his resignation from the National Assembly along with scores of legislators of APDM component parties on Oct 2, told reporters that his party would never reconcile with General Pervez Musharraf.

He was referring to a reconciliation ordinance likely to be promulgated by the president giving amnesty to politicians and bureaucrats against their alleged corruption between 1988 and 1999.

He said the presidential elections to be held on Oct 6 were devoid of any moral and legal standing after collective resignations by APDM members of the National Assembly and three provincial assemblies. He appealed to traders to participate in the strike and make it a success.

Separately, APDM leaders told reporters that local committees had been formed to make the strike call a success.

PML-N’s Mian Marghub Ahmad, MMA’s Amriul Azeem, Pakistan Tehrik-I-Insaaf’s Shabbir Sial and Khaksar Tehrik’s Hameeduddin Ahmad said the committee members were approaching representatives of major traders’ bodies and the response they achieved so far was very encouraging.

They also appealed to the Pakistan People’s Party to acknowledge sacrifices of its workers and seek favour from the masses instead of any army general.

They said they were determined to utilise all means to resist the re-election of the general. “We have knocked at the doors of judiciary, tendered resignations and will now take recourse to the masses.”

They claimed that business community leaders, who had assured their cooperation for the strike, did not attend the press conference apprehending their arrests.