KARACHI, March 18: Leaders of the mainstream political parties on Monday maintained that General Musharraf’s decision to hold referendum for remaining president even beyond Oct 2002 was violative of the constitution and dangerous for the federation.

Addressing a seminar on “October 2002 elections—Our point of view”, organized by the Centre for Development and Democracy (CDD), they rejected unilateral constitutional changes by the regime and said it amounted to pre-election rigging.

Referring to reports about the government’s intentions to hold referendum for seeking popular approval of Gen Musharraf’s presidency, Pakistan People’s Party acting secretary-general, Raza Rabbani, said that in the constitution this option could only be exercised for ascertaining public’s view on matters of national importance. Referendum could not be used to seek approval for installing any individual in any post. He said that the government plan was part of pre-election rigging.

He said the 1973 constitution was a consensus document which was supported by all the political parties inside the parliament of that time. Therefore, it represented support of all the federating units.

“The 1973 constitution does not give any individual the right to make changes to the constitution.”

He contended that if at all any amendment has to be made to the constitution, it should be done within the ambit of Articles 238 and 239 of the constitution. No individual has the right to decide who will contest elections and represent the people, it is for the people to decide, he said.

He also declared that once the election schedule is announced, the PPP will decide when its chairperson Benazir Bhutto will return to Pakistan. He stated that “Benazir will contest the elections”.

He said that despite the efforts of the civil-military bureaucracy the government will not be able to create dissension between the PPP leadership and the general public because the party has a “long history of death, sweat, toil and tears while struggling for the rights of the people”.

He was of the view that in the current situation free and fair election was not possible and cited alleged manipulation of electoral lists and limits of constituencies during the local body elections. He said that instead of Election Commission, NADRA’ electoral list was used.

He demanded of the government to spell out categorically which voter list was being updated. He also alleged that arbitrary use of NAB law was being made to coerce political opponents, particularly the PPP leadership.

He also accused the government of being partisan and claimed that the elements of the so-called King’s Party were being given official protocol and their interests were being protected by appointing officials of their own choice in a particular constituency in a bid to obtain favourable results in the forthcoming elections.

Mr Rabbani also alleged that elected Nazims were also being coerced to support a particular list of candidates if they wanted their development funds released.

He demanded a government of national consensus to be installed immediately to hold elections within 90 days, independent election commission, multiple identity card facilities, election results to be announced by the district returning officers, as was the case in 1985 elections, and transparent ballot boxes.

Syed Munawwar Hassan, secretary general of Jamat-i-Islami, emphasized the need for forging a united and common strategy by the political parties to frustrate the regime’s policies in the upcoming general elections.

He said the political parties should prepare themselves to face the planned referendum which he said was contrary to Supreme Court’s judgment, validating the military takeover of Gen Pervez Musharraf.

He said there was a need to mobilise the people to come out and gather outside the polling stations on the referendum day to frustrate the regime’s manipulation to get almost 100 per cent results.

The JI secretary-general also proposed that the political struggle for democracy would get a boost if Benazir Bhutto, Nawaz Sharif and Altaf Hussain returned to the country without fearing their arrest.

He was of the view that the government was trying to impose nominated people on the elected representatives under the garb of giving more representation to women and technocrats.

The JI leader said that what the military rulers were contemplating doing was nothing new. They had done it many a times since Ayub Khan but it was up to the people to fully expose policies of the regime. It will become difficult for the general to face the onslaught of the people, he said. He was of the view that holding of election was better than not having elections at all.

Mr Ahsan Iqbal of the PML (N) said that over the last 54 years democracy had not been stabilized owing to frequent military interventions.

He said the question which must be given serious thought was why military intervenes at will and how the civil-military relationship had facilitated that.

Admitting the mistakes committed by political parties in the past he said that if politicians had erred, military had committed blunders as well.

He was of the view that the country had remained destabilized for many decades because the military was not prepared to accept the civilian rule. He wondered that while politicians were blamed for the country’s problems, why the military establishment not explained as to who had prepared and executed the national security policies as a result of which the country had been fragmented.

“If democracy can sustain in Bangladesh and India, why can’t we have it in Pakistan?” he asked.

Mr Iqbal said that his party would not accept unilateral changes in the constitution and also criticized the induction of military officials into the judiciary. He said that it amounted to manipulation of the judiciary which was already under pressure after the Provisional Constitutional Order.

He said that events have shown that the regime has not learnt from the published version of the Hamoodur Rahman Commission Report and said the manner in which the regime is trying to hold elections to marginalize national parties, it will throw up regional parties in the federating units which will be dangerous for the federation.

Earlier CDD Chairman Nafees Siddiqui said the government was deliberately trying to confuse the people on referendum. He said that if the relevant national parties and their leaders were not allowed to participate, it would make the outcome doubtful.

The seminar was chaired by senior journalist Sultan Ahmed, who is also president of the Karachi chapter of the CDD.