BANNU, Feb 20: Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman has alleged that poll results were prepared well before the Feb 18 election on the basis of the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) promulgated under agreements reached with some exiled leaders.
Talking to journalists at the Durrani House in Mewakhel on Wednesday, he said he had no plans to move the court against the results despite reservations expressed by some leaders of his party.
“We have some reservations. The turnout which was low during polling turned out to be quite high during the counting. The unofficial results declared at polling stations were different from those announced officially,” he added.
The JUI-F chief said that a meeting of the party’s parliamentary and central executive committees would decide about a future line of action in a couple of days.
He said the JUI-F would prefer to sit in the opposition in the national as well as provincial assemblies. However, he said that his party would support the move for restoration of the Constitution.
“People have given their decision. Now the position and worth of every party are clear. People’s mandate should be respected and protected,” he added.
Maulana Fazl said the next government would face a number of internal and external challenges inherited from the previous rulers.
He said that the religious alliance had suffered the drubbing because of APDM’s boycott of the elections. “The decision was wrong and people did not respond to the boycott call. The APDM has miserably failed to keep the people away from polling stations.”
He said that Qazi Hussain Ahmed and his team should confess to have committed a blunder which had shattered the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal.
Maulana Fazl accused the government of keeping him away from electioneering on the pretext of security cover.
Answering a question, he said President Pervez Musharraf was over-confident about his popularity and had said that he would quit whenever he felt that his popularity graph had declined. “And now that the nation has given its verdict, there is no moral justification for President Musharraf to stick to power.”
He said the war against terrorism and extremism was a drama staged by the establishment to malign the MMA government in the Frontier. “The situation in the volatile tribal areas will soon be normal and the army and paramilitary forces will start withdrawing from the areas.”
He said a strong, stable and secure democratic set-up required complete independence of the judiciary, adding that the release of a few judges would not resolve the judicial crisis.
