LAHORE, May 20: ARD President Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan says if some ruling party had failed in the past to change its leader of the house even after his inability to deliver, it does not mean that struggle against the president having the axe to dismiss a government at will should be abandoned.

Talking to reporters at his residence on Tuesday, the senior leader said in no country where the parliamentary system was in vogue was the president empowered to sack the premier, leave alone the parliament.

He admitted that the ARD and the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal had divergent views on the subject. While the ARD wanted to take away the lethal powers the president wanted to have through the LFO, the MMA wanted that the head of state should be authorized to dismiss the cabinet alone in certain situations.

The Nawabzada said the two alliances had also different approaches about Gen Musharraf’s eligibility to stay as president or army chief.

The ARD, the Nawabzada said, was of the opinion that Gen Musharraf was not qualified to stay as president as he was a government employee who was required to wait for at least two years after retirement before offering his candidacy for the job. As army chief, he said, he had already completed his term and thus must quit.

The MMA, he said, was willing to give Gen Musharraf until Aug 14 to step down as army chief. Thereafter, it was reportedly willing to have him elected as president through the electoral college, as mentioned in the Constitution.

The Nawabzada said if the president was given the authority to remove the head of a government, the prime minister would always be vulnerable, and instead of doing anything for the country, he would be more worried to keep his ‘boss’ happy at any cost.

The Nawabzada was asked about the justification for the ARD to oppose the president’s power to sack the prime minister or parliament, no matter what the situation.

He said in democratic countries the ruling parties worked as a watchdog on the prime minister and if they ever realized that he was not working to the satisfaction of the electorate, they replaced him with a better person. The president played no role in bringing about the change of leadership.

He said in case the president of Pakistan was given such powers, members of the ruling party would involve themselves in intrigues against their own prime minister, hoping that they would get a chance to govern once their leader was thrown out. In such situations, he said, a political system could never stabilize. In his opinion, the president should also not have the right to sack parliament.

It was pointed out that the PML-N had not changed its leader of the house (Mian Nawaz Sharif) even when the Grand Democratic Alliance (of which the ARD was carved out subsequently) had launched a movement against the Sharif government, alleging that it was a product of the rigged elections.

The Nawabzada agreed that the PML-N had not respected the public aspirations then, but hastened to add that this did not mean that the president should be vested with some powers alien to the parliamentary system.

He hoped that political parties would learn a lesson and repeat not their past mistakes.

The ARD president did not agree with the suggestion that in view of the external and internal challenges, the country could not afford the change of leadership at this juncture.

“Nobody is indispensable”, said the Nawabzada, emphasizing that the change of government would be possible only through augmented public pressure.

In response to a question, he said no army official, no matter how high-ranking, could dare speak against Gen Pervez Musharraf as the general had the power to order their promotions and postings.

He said the military bureaucracy was like civil bureaucracy which had to go with every ruler, no matter what his credentials.

In his opinion anybody who had ‘informed’ the media that the army wanted Gen Musharraf to serve both as president and army chief had done a great disservice to the institution.