ISLAMABAD, March 7: The Pakistan People’s Party on Wednesday said it is the prerogative of the people of Pakistan, not of an army chief, to choose their prime minister.

In a statement, a spokesman for the party took exception to President Pervez Musharraf’s statement published in a section of the press on Tuesday that he was planning to hand over premiership to the PPP in 2007 but Benazir Bhutto did not want to allow anybody else to become the prime minister.

The spokesman said General Musharraf should stop giving an impression that he was favourably inclined towards the party, while continuing to imprison, exile and fabricate charges against the party. He also blamed him for factionalizing the PPP and the PML (N) as the latest defection during the Senate elections in Punjab and NWFP demonstrated.