LAHORE, Aug 18: Information Minister Muhammad Ali Durrani said on Saturday no one from outside would be allowed to decide about the future government of Pakistan as it was the “exclusive right of the people”.

Speaking at a seminar on media’s role in the Pakistan Movement, organised by the Press Institute of Pakistan here, he stressed that the country should refuse to accept those who wanted to rule Pakistan under foreign dictation and command. It was the exclusive right of the people of Pakistan to elect a new government.

The minister said instead of going for conflict, the government had adopted the policy of dialogue, allowing the people to use their right of electing their next government. “We should not give any right to anyone to form the government through intrigues,” he reiterated.

Referring to the re-election of Gen Pervez Musharraf as president in uniform, he said a decision in this regard would be taken in the light of the Constitution and the verdicts of parliament and the judiciary.

“Anyone having any objection to his re-election can challenge it anywhere because all doors are open. But the president will not overstep the constitutional limits,” he said.

“It is not easy now to establish another military dictatorship in the country. But I believe no one will also be able to establish a political dictatorship either here,” he said. For that purpose, he added, all political parties should have to shun dictatorships within their ranks.

He said it was the military leaders who gave political leadership to the country in the shape of Mr Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Mr Nawaz Sharif.

The minister said the government was not striking any deal with any political party. There should be dialogue and no deal in politics. The government was in contact with the PPP, the MMA and even small regional parties. It had also been in contact with Nawaz Sharif when he was in Pakistan and even in Jeddah, he said.

He said the country should now move towards real democratic attitude. The president had always said the government was not striking a deal (with the PPP) and instead was in touch with it.

Mr Durrani said the government was concentrating on how to continue with the political process in the country and for that purpose was in touch with all political parties. It was taking parliament into confidence, he said.

According to him, the authenticity of all past elections in the country had been questioned. This time the government needed full cooperation of the media to ensure free and fair elections in the real sense of the term, he emphasised.

The minister said the country’s greatest challenge at the moment was the introduction of real democracy. And this could be established only through a free press and a free judiciary.

“The government has given unprecedented freedom to the media and the judiciary. It is even openly accepting all decisions against it. It has open-heartedly accepted the decision (of the chief justice),” he said.

He said the army’s control over the country was wrong. But the political leaders, who were in the habit of looking towards the GHQ and the USA, should also not come into power because they could not give anything to the country through hollow slogans and false promises.

Majeed Nizami said there should be no uniform democracy in the country of Allama Iqbal and the Quaid-i-Azam. The next government would be formed by the people. It was not the duty of the press to toe the line of the rulers, he said. —Staff Reporter