LAHORE, July 13: Gen Pervez Musharraf should accept the MMA’s offer to retain presidency and the office of the army chief as he can’t expect a similar package from the ARD, a PML-N leader said here on Sunday.

MNA Khwaja Saad Rafiq, who is also provincial secretary-general, told a news conference that the MMA and the ARD had different points of view on Gen Musharraf’s eligibility to become president.

He made it clear that at no cost would the ARD accept Gen Musharraf as the head of state.

He said the yet-to-begin government-opposition talks would be the last attempt to resolve the LFO controversy through peaceful means, and in case the two sides failed to make any breakthrough, a movement would be initiated in September-October. The campaign, he said, would culminate in an Iran-like revolution in Pakistan, of which Mian Nawaz Sharif would be the leader.

This is for the first time that an opposition leader has talked of an Iran-like revolution, as a result which a large number of people had been killed; the bureaucracy pruned and an Islamic system enforced.

The ARD, Mr Saad claimed, was ready to launch the movement.

Mr Saad saw no chance of the government-opposition parleys making any headway because of the yawning gap between the positions of the two sides and reluctance of Gen Musharraf to open his mind.

PML-N President Shahbaz Sharif, he said, also wanted a peaceful solution to the crisis in Pakistan, but he regretted that the rulers had closed all doors.

Mr Saad said the proposed revolution would uproot the deep-rooted system of exploitation and usher in dawn of a new era.

In case of any change, the PML-N leader said, Mian Nawaz Sharif would make a departure from his past traditions and allow not any sycophant to get close to him. Courtiers, who had bluffed their way into the present system, would be kept at bay, he pledged.

He reiterated that the PML-N apologized to the nation for supporting dictatorship in the past. Never ever in the future would the party repeat such a mistake, he said.

About the new contempt of court law, he said it was a move by the government to bring the judiciary under pressure and get decisions of its linking.

The new law, he said, would also undermine the status of elected parliament.