LAHORE, Aug 18: Leaders of the Pakistan Muslim League-Q are mystified by Gen (retd) Pervez Musharraf’s decision to resign without sharing his plans in several meetings he had held with them in recent days.

Party sources said on Monday that whenever the president met them, he only sought their advice about how to deal with the crisis triggered by the coalition’s impeachment move. But he never shared with them how he planned to frustrate the plans to oust him.

The sources said the party leaders had inferred from the former president’s silence that he did not plan to defend himself.

A central leader said that the party had advised Gen (retd) Musharraf to participate in the Olympics’ inaugural ceremony in Beijing. “We advised him to arrive at the Islamabad airport in a half-sleeve shirt, with a cigar in his hand. We also advised him to look relaxed and tell the media before leaving for Beijing that he would deal with the impeachment plan after he returned”.

The president was told that when he would be seen shaking hands with the chiefs of the armed forces, who would be at the airport to see him off, a very strong message would go to his opponents about his self-confidence, the PML-Q leader said.

However, he said that when the president cancelled the trip to China, and provided an opportunity to the prime minister to represent the country, his vulnerability was exposed.

The sources said that the party’s top leaders had consistently told the beleaguered leader that he should challenge the charges against him in the Supreme Court to block the impeachment process. But why did the president not choose this course was still a mystery to the PML-Q leadership, he said.

The former president also did not accept the PML-Q’s advice to reinstate the judges and repeal the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) if he was thinking about stepping down. “Such a step would have created a political upheaval,” the party leaders said.

Now that the president has quit, the party has started thinking about ways of preventing defections.

But most of the party leaders believe that while some people would switch loyalty, the PML-Q may still play the role of an effective opposition.

Asked if the new situation would pave the way to unify the PML-Q and PML-N, the sources said: “It may bring us closer”.