LAHORE, Sept 1: ARD president Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan says the status of Gen Pervez Musharraf is like that of the viceroy in pre-partition India, whose orders were binding but not recognized as legitimate by the Muslim League or the Congress.

In a Dawn Dialogue interview in Lahore, the octogenarian leader alleged the general was trampling democratic norms and institutions and said the tug-of-war between the government and opposition parties over the LFO would push the country to anarchy.

He said even the entire parliament could not weld the LFO into the Constitution as this would change the latter’s basic structure. If at all the two houses wanted to go ahead with such a graft, their members would have to seek a fresh mandate from the electorate.

The Nawabzada said opposition parties did not take the LFO issue to the Supreme Court for a settlement because all lawyers’ organizations had decided not to raise any constitutional matter in the apex court on account of the role it had played during the past three years.

He said in 1988, the army was in no mood to hand over power to Ms Benazir Bhutto, but subsequently changed its mind when she agreed to retain the then president and foreign minister.

Refusing to accept the present dispensation as democratic, the ARD president said if a cock crowed at midnight, it did not mean it was morning. He defended his role in various periods, and indicated he was not bothered about how he would go down in history.