LAHORE, May 17: Pakistan People’s Party leader Asif Ali Zardari and PML-N chairman Raja Zafarul Haq have strongly criticized Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed for claiming that Gen Pervez Musharraf will stay on as president even after 2007, when his term as the head of state will end.

Talking to Dawn on Tuesday, Mr Zardari said: “This is their (government’s) brand of democracy. They talk of enlightenment but they have started saying who will be the president after 2007, a date which is still far away”.

Asked what Gen Musharraf would have to do if he wanted to stay on as president after 2007, the PPP leader said: “He would have to take off his uniform, hold elections and let the parliament take a decision on the subject.”

The PPP leader said it was parliament’s prerogative to choose a president.

When asked if the information minister’s statement could affect the dialogue process between the PPP and the establishment, Mr Zardari said he was not saying that talks were going on. “It’s the other side which has been claiming that talks are being held.”

He said the contacts were for the restoration of democracy and “for no other purpose”.

He criticized the president for presiding over a meeting of the ruling PML at the presidency.

PML-N Chairman Raja Zafarul Haq said the information minister’s statement reflected the fear of “a man who had come to power through unconstitutional means”.

For such people, Raja Zafar said, power was the only sanctuary and they always thought of prolonging their rule one way or the other.

When asked how could President Musharraf retain himself in power after the completion of his first term, the PML-N chairman said the general would have to allow the exiled leaders to return to the country and hold free and fair elections.

He said if Gen Musharraf believed that his performance as a ruler had been satisfactory and that he had worked in line with his seven-point agenda, he should leave it to people to decide who their president should be.

The PML-N leader said that a system which was ‘unconstitutional’ should not be prolonged, because that would be a ‘kind of extremism’.

He said if the popular leadership was not allowed to return, nobody would accept whatever steps were “taken by the rulers to perpetuate themselves in power”.