June 18, 2008	Wednesday	Jamadi-us-Sani 13, 1429

LAHORE, June 17: Former federal minister Ejazul Haq has parted ways with the PML-Q because his ‘chemistry’ is different from that of the party cobbled together by President Musharraf shortly before the 2002 election.

Ejaz told Dawn here on Tuesday that he was holding consultations with his friends to decide his future course of action. Reviving the PML-Z, of which he was the chairman till he merged it with the PML-Q, is also among the options he is considering at present.

He claims that a number of PML-Q leaders are also with him and they will follow the same line of action.

In his assessment next general election is not far off, but he wants to bring all rightist forces on one platform before that.

He said various PML-Q leaders had worked against him in the Feb 18 election just like the PPP rivals campaigned against him. He said he had made a serious political mistake by deciding to contest the election from the PML-Q’s platform rather than as an independent.

About the future of the PML-Q, he said this party was running out of steam and would soon be reduced to a small group led by the Chaudhrys of Gujrat. He said he could have personal relations with the Chaudhrys, but the two sides had nothing in common any more as far as politics was concerned.

Ejaz said the PML-N was involved in politics of expediency and power-sharing by working with the PPP. Thus, he said, there was no chance for it to join hands with the rightist forces.

The former federal minister said President Musharraf was the victim of his own blunders and miscalculations. He said he had made a serious mistake by filing a reference against Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry when an overwhelming majority of the cabinet ministers had opposed the idea. Similarly, he said, it was a wrong step on the part of the president to promulgate the National Reconciliation Ordinance despite serious reservations expressed by the then cabinet.

President Musharraf, he said, believed that Ms Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif would not return to Pakistan before the general elections. He said the president had also given the same assurance to the PML-Q leadership. “The return of Ms Bhutto and Mr Sharif before the election was unexpected for President Musharraf.”