LAHORE, March 31: The announcement of referendum proposal by Gen Pervez Musharraf shows that he has no intentions to transfer power to the elected representatives.

This was stated by Alliance for Restoration of Democracy’s deputy information secretary Munir Ahmad Khan on Sunday.

Speaking at a news conference here, he said a meeting of the ARD had been convened in Islamabad on April 7 to discuss the situation.

He said that when a serving COAS would become president of the country its governance system could be termed anything else but a parliamentary or presidential system. “It will only be a Khaki system.”

According to the preamble of the constitution, Mr Khan claimed, only a constituent assembly was authorized to change the governance system.

He said waiving the identity condition for voting in the proposed referendum suggested that its results would be rigged.

He challenged Gen Musharraf’s assertion that 90 per cent political parties were favouring his proposal, saying that the PPP, PML(N), JI, JUI and ANP were opposing it.

He said that if the general had claims of a large following in the country then why he was not daring to get himself elected through the normal electoral procedure.

He claimed that police were harassing the newsmen who had reported the event in which people had said no to the referendum during the Punjab governor’s recent visit to Mandi Bahauddin.