ISLAMABAD, Dec 8: The Pakistan Muslim League (PML) will support President General Pervez Musharraf if he decides against discarding military uniform beyond 2007 "in the interest of national integration and sustained democracy".

"We will support his re-election in uniform after his current term expires in 2007," PML president Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain told Dawn on Friday, when asked to comment on President Musharraf’s remarks aired by India’s NDTV.

Chaudhry Shujaat said the president had become the symbol of unity and the country needed him both as president and army chief.

He said that General Musharraf understood his constitutional obligations very well.

"Since he has so far acted in accordance with the Constitution, we in the PML fully support him in both the capacities," he said.

To a question, he said that all leaders of his party believed in the leadership of President Musharraf and no one had any objection to his continuing in military uniform in future as well.

To another question, the PML chief said that his party had contacted religious scholars for their opinion on the new bill presented in the National Assembly to further protect the rights of women. The objective was also to allay the apprehensions of religious leaders about the bill that had been signed into a law, he added.

"We have approached religious scholars who are certainly well read about Islam, compared to others," he said, adding that if these religious scholars opined against the adopted bill, necessary amendments would be made to it through another bill that had just been sent to the speaker.

"I want to tell political and religious leaders that we are not inflexible and are not avoiding accommodating their viewpoint on women’s right bill, especially when the issue is being discussed in the light Quran and Sunnah," he said.