SWABI, Sept 8: Awami National Party (ANP) president Asfandyar Wali Khan has said that his party will support the lawyers’ movement against the present regime in the same way it supported the movement for the restoration of Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry.Addressing the Chota Lahor Bar Association here on Saturday, he said the struggle initiated by the lawyers’ community bore fruit and commended their heroic efforts for an independent judiciary. The ANP leaders and workers would fight side by side with the lawyers, he declared.He proposed that lawyers and leaders of political parties should consult each other and work collectively to achieve their goals.

They should make joint efforts for the restoration of a genuine democratic order in the country, he said, adding that democracy was vital for progress.He claimed that the ANP leadership had always opposed dictatorship since the country got independence in 1947.

Regarding Gen Pervez Musharraf’s re-election as president from the current assemblies, he said that the general was not acceptable to the ANP with or without uniform.

He advocated unity among Pukhtuns to face the serious challenges they were facing.

He said the ongoing war on the Pukhtun soil was not jihad, but a war for the eradication of Pukhtuns as all their terrains were under the shadows of guns and bomb blasts.

He asked that if it really was a jihad then why the war was

being fought only on Pukhtun soil and not in the Punjab province.

Mr Khan criticised the provincial government led by Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal and claimed that the religious parties would face public rejection in the forthcoming polls.