TOKYO, March 6: President Pervez Musharraf said Wednesday that he would stay in power after parliamentary elections in October to consolidate his structural reform plans, a press report said.
“I will make sure that the prime minister does not reverse the process of reforms and restructuring that we have done,” he said in an interview with Japanese journalists, Kyodo News reported.
Gen Musharraf, due to visit Tokyo for four days from next Tuesday, said his government was working on constitutional amendments to create check and balance on any new civilian government, particularly the president, prime minister and army chief of staff.
“In Pakistan all these power brokers have, at some stage or other, misused or overused their authority. Now we need to control them. How we go about doing this, you will have to wait a little,” he was quoted as saying.
“It may sound arrogant and undemocratic when I say that I will be president after October but this was the dictate of the ground realities and I am a believer in ground realities.
“If in the interest of Pakistan I feel that I can do something, I will do it. And I think at the moment that is the situation — that I have a role to play and my role will be to consolidate whatever I am trying to do in the political sphere,” he said.
He said his reforms and political restructuring were aimed at ensuring there is a constitutional answer to any political crises so that the country does not revert back to the unstable political situation that prevailed before he took power, according to Kyodo.
“If I bring out reforms today and say ‘OK, bye-bye, I am going home,’ then it won’t work. I will consolidate the reforms so that they are permanent,” he said.
While in Tokyo, Musharraf is due to hold talks with Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and meet with Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko.
Musharraf and Koizumi are expected to discuss wide-ranging issues, including the global fight against terrorism as well as international efforts to help reconstruct war-torn Afghan-istan. —AFP
