HYDERABAD, Sept 12: Sindh Taraqqi Pasand Party chairman Dr Qadir Magsi has said that democracy will remain a misnomer unless the provinces are given equal rights, provincial autonomy is restored, pre-November 3, 2007 judiciary is reinstated and 17th constitutional amendment and other dictatorial amendments are repealed.

He was addressing party workers at the Taraqqi Passand house here on Friday. He said the federating units were deprived of all their political, economic and cultural rights. He said this was the reason that disharmony between the federation and the provinces had not been eliminated during the last 61 years.

No doubt a civilian government has come into power but real democracy is far away, Magsi said and added that the local bodies system, imposed on the country by Pervez Musharraf and the dictatorial constitutional amendments made by him, were still in place as were the polices formulated by him.

Terming the change in the government a revolution amounts to hoodwinking the people, Magsi said and added: “To give a safe passage to the murderer of Benazir Bhutto, Nawab Akbar Bugti, Balach Mari and thousands of others and keeping the constitutional amendments intact have already proved that only faces and not the system had changed.”

He said the PPP government was still at the mercy of establishment.