ISLAMABAD, Aug 2: The People’s Party Parliamentarians (PPP) on Thursday criticised the government for appointing Justice (retd) Malik Mohammad Qayyum as attorney general, terming it a setback for the hitherto unexplained ‘confidence-building measures’ between the party and the military regime of Gen Pervez Musharraf.

When contacted, a spokesman for the PPP and former senator Farhatullah Babar said the appointment of Justice (retd) Malik Qayyum as the attorney general (AG) had shocked the nation as well as the PPP.

Refusing to divulge the details of the CBMs, he said the presentation of the formula to the government by the PPP for holding free and fair elections in the country and the regime’s willingness to consider it should be regarded as CBMs.

It was for the first time that the PPP had admitted that some kind of CBMs were going on between the party and the regime as earlier the party had always refuted such claims even by some of the government functionaries.

Political experts believe that the CBMs between the Musharraf regime and the PPP have been going on for the past many months.

They said that the deputy chairman of the National Accountability Bureau, Hassan Wasim Afzal, who played an active role in preparing corruption cases against Ms Bhutto during the Nawaz Sharif government, was removed from the post and transferred to Lahore on the PPP’s request.

It is said the government’s move to seek long adjournment in the SGS case in the Swiss court was also a part of the CBMs.

Some of the experts even see departure of Asif Zardari to the US and removal of the names of former speaker Syed Yusuf Raza Gillani and PPP secretary general Jahangir Badar from the ECL were also a part of the CBMs taken by the government in response to the PPP’s support to the government in the passage of Women Protection Bill and the Lal Masjid operation.

Meanwhile, Mr Babar in a statement issued on Thursday said that Justice (retd) Malik Qayyum was forced to resign following a Supreme Court judgment that found bias in one of his decision he wrote as a judge of the high court.

He said that documentary evidence in the form of his taped conversations with the then NAB chairman showed that he had flagrantly violated the code of conduct, which every judge must subscribe to.