PESHAWAR, Dec 14: The people of smaller provinces did not want to break up the country but, at the same time, they were not ready to live like slaves, Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party chairman Mehmood Khan Achakzai said on Friday.

He said: “We would not accept the next government to be formed by any political party or coalition in the aftermath of the Jan 8 elections, because the upcoming polls are no more than a farce.”

Speaking at a Guest’s Hour programme at the Peshawar Press Club on Friday, he said the country’s founding fathers wanted Pakistan to be a welfare state based on a federal parliamentary democratic system, but successive military rulers had turned it into a “permanent dictatorship.”

He called upon people to launch a civil disobedience campaign against the rulers.

He said the Baloch, Sindhis, the Pakhtun and Seraeki people were unhappy over the state of affairs. “They think that after the creation of Pakistan they have been living under permanent martial law,” he added.

Mr Achakzai said the nationalist, Islamist and democratic forces were fighting for the very existence of the country. He said only an independent judiciary could strengthen the bonds of brotherhood among the federating units of the country, but the military rulers had targeted this very institution.

He said the All Parties Democratic Movement (APDM) was struggling for the reinstatement of the Supreme Court’s deposed judges and restoration of the 1973 Constitution, while other political parties were taking part in a controlled and dubious general election.

He further stated the so-called democratic parties were taking part in a farce manoeuvred by the military rulers.

He said two former prime ministers — Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif — had taken part in the previous four rigged elections and formed their separate governments, but they had to face humiliation at the hands of “invisible rulers.”

He said Mr Sharif’s two-thirds majority in the parliament could not save him from humiliation and forced him into exile.

Mr Achakzai, also convener of the All Parties Democratic Movement, said the armed forces should not have any role in the political system “instead, they should be subservient to the parliament.”

“We want a parliament which should be the nucleus of the political power. We will not go for a rubber-stamp parliament,” he added.

He said the All Parties Democratic Movement was with the legal fraternity, journalists and the civil society fighting for the reinstatement of the judges who had refused to take the oath under the Provisional Constitution Order.

Mr Achakzai said: “The end of an independent judiciary will promote injustice in the country. It is a final battle between the good and the evil. We reject all formulas of sharing powers with the army.

“We want the army to be subservient to the elected parliament.

“The Turkish army was a liberator force in the twenties that is why it had created a room for itself in the Turkish constitution and political system, while Pakistan Army had no role in the independence of the country.”

He said the All Parties Democratic Movement wanted to evolve a political mechanism to stop the generals from staging coups and tampering with the political system. He stressed the need for a social contract between the political forces to run the country.