NEW YORK, Feb 20: President Pervez Musharraf warned on Wednesday that any clash between himself and the next prime minister would undermine democracy, saying “the clash will be if the prime minister and president will be trying to get rid of each other. I only hope we avoid these clashes.”

In his first interview to a US paper after the parliamentary elections, Mr Musharraf told the Wall Street Journal he did not plan to step down.

Instead, he said, he wanted to help end internecine battles between presidents and prime ministers that have marred country’s political history and precipitated military interference in the government.

President Musharraf, the paper said, intended to stay in office to guide Pakistan’s democratic transition — even if it meant working with a man he believed once tried to kill him.

“We have to move forward in a way that we bring about a stable democratic government to Pakistan,” said Mr Musharraf.

The newspaper observed that “the strongman who brooked little opposition in the years after his 1999 coup now stands in a delicate spot, rejected by his own people and facing a government likely to be led by a party with reasons to despise him. He is seeking to hang on to power, even as his political base crumbles.”

Mr Musharraf asserted in the interview that “Pakistan now has the checks and balances in place to prevent any politician -- or the army — from usurping power.

“The prime minister runs the government. The president has his own position, but has no authority running the government,” he said.

The newspaper said that “one debate is already flaring up: whether to restore an independent judiciary, which could produce a Supreme Court that would call into doubt the legitimacy of Mr Musharraf’s re-election as president last year.”

Asked to comment on the demand of PML-N leader Nawaz Sharif to reinstate the judges he had removed, Mr Musharraf said that calling back the former chief justice and other top judges wasn’t a possibility.

He said he had not met either Mr Sharif or Mr Zardari since the election.