ISLAMABAD July 2: Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) president Qazi Hussain Ahmed on Sunday asked President Gen Pervez Musharraf to step down and hand over power to an interim government of national consensus to hold fresh elections.

He was addressing a protest demonstration, mostly attended by legislators belonging to the Jamaat-i-Islami, in the Aabpara area on Sunday.

Qazi Hussain claimed that his party’s legislators had handed over to him their resignations, which would be submitted after consulting other opposition parties at an “appropriate time”.

“We do not recognise Gen Musharraf as a genuinely-elected president nor do we recognise him as the chief of the army staff after he violated the agreement on the 17th Amendment. He had pledged to relinquish one of the two offices before Dec 31, 2004,” he said.

Earlier, the JI chief presided over a meeting of party legislators to review the domestic political situation and decided to hold a protest demonstration.

No details of the meeting were made public. It is learnt that the party legislators reviewed various options in the light of the party’s relations with other major MMA components like the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (F).

Qazi Hussain declared that the option of resigning from the assemblies was “open to opposition parties” and it would be exercised at an appropriate time to press the government into restoring democracy and the constitution.

The JI chief insisted that he would bring in committed political workers “in large numbers” to Islamabad with the “active support of other opposition parties” in September to “force” the military-led government to pack up and the army to return to barracks.

He said there were no differences among the opposition parties on basic issues, adding that they feared that fair, free and transparent elections could not be held with General Musharraf as president.

Similarly, leading opposition parties were unanimous that only street power could get rid the country of “perpetual army rule”.

He said the opposition was agreed upon the formation of an interim government to ensure free and fair elections. But, even more pressing was the need to set up an independent election commission with the consent of the opposition, he asserted.

He also said that there was no difference of opinion among MMA parties on launching an all-out struggle against Gen Musharraf. He said that the plan to hold public rallies in July for mobilising people was a consensus decision.