ISLAMABAD, Aug 31: Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) chief coordinator Ahsan Iqbal has alleged that perpetuation of the military rule in the country is discouraging foreign investment and hampering real economic growth.

Briefing newsmen on country’s state of politics and economy here on Sunday, Mr Iqbal, who was deputy chairman of the planning commission in the Nawaz-led government, said: “In the wake of growing political instability, even if foreign exchange reserves touched $20 billion mark, there can’t be any real economic growth.”

He alleged that President Gen Pervez Musharraf by putting new question marks on country’s political horizon to protect his power was adding to the uncertainty about the future of democracy and about the present government, in the minds of both local and foreign investors.

He said Pakistan’s economy had been turned into an economy of speculative gains in real estate and stock market because no investor wants to give his investment a long term exposure. As a result, he remarked, the prices of plots have sky rocketed and Karachi Stocks index was turning into a bubble.

“Political stability and social solidarity were pre- requisites for economic development a lesson which we should learn from China,” he said and added that the present constitutional crisis over the LFO had shaken the very foundations of President’s Musharraf’s promised ideal democracy for which he broke all past records of poll rigging and horse trading.

Mr Iqbal said if the version of sham democracy which was cooked in the offices of intelligence agencies and corps headquarters and the so called graduate parliament had turned uncivilized, the blame should be accepted by its authors.

He said it was unfortunate that military was being dragged into politics and civilian institutions by the present regime which was a recipe for disaster as Pakistan was faced with serious security challenges.