PESHAWAR, June 30: Participants of a seminar held here on Saturday demanded setting up of a neutral caretaker government and an autonomous Election Commission. They said free and fair elections in the country would be impossible unless the military and intelligence agencies were barred from interfering in politics.

Opposition political parties demanded a consensus-based caretaker government and rejected the possibility of elections under a military ruler.

The seminar on “issues related to elections” was organised by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.

The speakers warned that the country might face a 1971-like situation if forthcoming elections were not held in a free and fair manner. Provincial president ANP Afrasyab Khattak termed the current crisis being faced by the country as an institutional crisis and alleged that state institutions were in complete disarray.

He regretted that laws were being made in the GHQ rather than the elected assemblies and said the judiciary had been made subordinate to the executive after judges took the oath under the PCO.

Mr Khattak said the suspension of the chief justice by President Gen Pervez Musharraf had provided an opportunity to opposition parties to form a grand alliance. He said it was because of this opportunity that the opposition parties for the first time were raising the common slogans for the restoration of ‘real’ democracy, independence of the judiciary and supremacy of law.

He, however, urged the MMA government to resign from the Balochistan government if it wanted the All Parties Conference scheduled for next month in London to succeed.

He criticised NWFP Governor Ali Mohammad Jan Aurakzai’s role in the Fata crisis and alleged that the central government had ignited the fire in tribal agencies and sent troops to kill innocent Pakhtuns. He accused the governor of accomplishing the central government’s ulterior motives of killing Pakhtuns.

Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP) leader Dr Said Alam Mehsud claimed that various steps taken by the federal government had clearly demonstrated that the forthcoming general elections would be the most rigged elections in the history of the country.

He accused the president of manipulating the political process and creating a favourable environment for his ‘king’s party’.

“How can free, fair and transparent elections be held if the country’s political system is in the hands of military and secret agencies?” the PkMAP leader asked.

“The nation would stand up as it happened in 1971 if the citizens were denied their basic rights to choose or reject their political representatives in the coming elections,” he warned.

Jamaat-i-Islami (JI)’s Naib Amir Mushtaq Ahmad Khan claimed that the country’s institutions had been destroyed and the Election Commission could not play an independent role.

PPPP leader Farid Toofan said that it was the responsibility of political parties to unite under a grand alliance and bar the army and intelligence agencies from interfering in politics.

JUI-F member Naeema Kishwar said the military ruler was promulgating ordinances despite the presence of elected assemblies.

Civil society representatives and lawyers said the people had no trust or interest in the election process; the political parties were disorganised; the neutrality of the present government and the president was questionable, and the Election Commission’s position had weakened.