KARACHI, Sept 16: Vice-President of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz Makhdoom Javed Hashmi has suggested that President Asif Ali Zardari make his first address to the joint session of parliament historic by announcing the schedule for restoring powers of parliament.

He said the democratic process did not come to fruition with the outcome of Feb 18 elections and with Mr Zardari’s entry into the presidency but would do so by empowerment of parliament with the restoration of the 1973 Constitution.

He made this suggestion at an Iftar arranged by a local party leader, Hafeezuddin, at his residence on Tuesday. Its Sindh chapter leaders Saleem Zia, Mamnoon Hussain, Makhdoom Shahnawaz and Khwaja Tariq Rahim also partook of Iftar.

Mr Hashmi pointed out that all the powers which Pervez Musharraf enjoyed as president were still with the presidency while parliament was powerless. If this position was not altered, the outcome of a long struggle would only reduce to a change of face, he said, adding that people and the late Benazir Bhutto had given sacrifices to change the system.

The PML-N leader conceded that the Feb 18 elections could not bring about any improvement in the life of the common man instead miseries of people had multiplied during the last six months. The situation did not reflect that the struggle for true democracy remained successful yet the worst kind of democracy was better than the dictatorship, he said, stressing that there was a need to take proper steps to strengthen democracy in the country. The first step in the right direction could be empowerment of the parliament, he suggested.

Referring to some media reports attributing to the government that powers cannot be transferred to the parliament until PPP gets a two-third majority in the Senate, he said the PML-N offered complete cooperation to the PPP for restoration of the 1973 Constitution. It was a PPP’s right to move a constitutional amendment bill in the parliament to repeal 58 2-B powers of the president and alter 17th constitutional amendment, which had completely defaced the nature of the constitution, he said, pledging that his party would support them to get the bills approved.

Seeking the restoration of deposed chief justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry and other judges to the Nov 2, 2007 position, the PML-N leader said that only an independent judiciary could guarantee a democratic dispensation, supremacy of the parliament and a fair presidential election.

The continuation of Musharraf policies and the fact that the parties which committed to restore all the deposed judges were enjoying powers without doing so had disappointed the nation, he said. He warned if politicians failed to make right decisions of dispensation of social justice they might face a major setback.