KARACHI, Aug 12: Chairman of the Pakistan People’s Party-Parliamentarian Makhdoom Amin Fahim has said his party does not believe in deals for powers but has been striving for a smooth transition from the military dispensation to democratic rule with the aim of denying a way to martial law in future.

He described the charge that the PPP was going to make a deal with the military ruler as “baseless”, arguing that the party had not withdrawn its demands that Gen Musharraf must doff his uniform; free and fair elections be held; and democracy be restored.

The PPP leader was talking to PPI at the residence of his party colleague, Iftikhar Qazi, here on Saturday. He noted that those who were levelling such allegations against the PPP had, in fact, entered a deal with Gen Musharraf helping him stay on as president in uniform. The others who fully supported the military ruler lived in palaces abroad, he added.

When his attention was drawn to certain politicians’ reported moves of instigating some other generals to topple the military ruler, the Makhdoom said such moves would prove to be a blunder and a severe blow to the efforts by democratic forces for the restoration of democracy. “It may take the nation yet another decade to remove the new general,” he remarked.

Makhdoom Amin Fahim, who also heads the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy, noted that certain forces were at work to get the ARD dissolved so that they could form a new opposition alliance. However, he said, they could not succeed in their designs as the ARD was very much intact.

Referring to the opposition’s APC in London and the moves to form a new alliance there, he said that the formation of the alliance was not on the agenda of the APC. It was only after the APC was over that the PML-N leader, Mian Nawaz Sharif, came out with such a proposal but the parties he consulted rejected the proposal.

“Our point of view was that it makes no sense to form a new alliance when the ARD is already there,” said the ARD chief, adding that similar attempts made by certain politicians in Pakistan earlier had also failed.

“In fact, the PPP had opposed the holding of the London APC. Ms Benazir Bhutto was of the view that the APC should be convened by the ARD and the right time for such a conference was only after Gen Musharraf’s act of getting himself re-elected. That would have been the time for the opposition to resign from the assemblies en-block.”

The Makhdoom observed that the rulers had become weak and were baffled. “Their days are numbered. Therefore, it would be better for them to hold fair and transparent elections for restoration of democracy in the country.”

In reply to a question, he said declaring emergency would be another blunder on the part of the rulers after the presidential reference against the chief justice of Pakistan.—PPI