PESHAWAR, April 22: Criticizing President Gen Pervez Musharraf for barring Benazir Bhutto from contesting the general elections, former speaker of the NWFP assembly and leader of PPP, Abdul Akber Khan, said she was fully qualified under Article 62 and 63 of the Constitution to participate in the polls.

He said that instead of wasting energies on the question whether Benazir could contest polls or not, the General should spare a thought about his unconstitutional steps as under the constitution he was not eligible to become president of the country.

Commenting on the characteristics of the presidential referendum in a press briefing, Mr Khan said: “The referendum is unique in a sense that neither the electorates are known nor the number of voters.” Even it was not known how many votes a single person would cast as there was no mechanism to verify whether a person had already cast his vote or not, he added.

Mr Khan, who is a constitutional expert, cited article 62 and 63 of the Constitution for justifying his claim. He stated that article 62 deals with pre-election disqualification whereas article 63 is meant for post-election disqualification. “A person stands disqualified from contesting polls if he is convicted for an offence involving moral turpitude or giving false evidence,” he said, adding “as Benazir Bhutto was only convicted in absentia which does not involve moral turpitude, therefore she is fully qualified to contest elections.”

The former speaker claimed that even if a person stands disqualified after elections, the election commission could not decide the matter on its own and a reference had to be sent to the Chief Election Commissioner by the speaker of the National Assembly or the chairman of the Senate, as the case may be.

He explained that under the same articles, no person could become a member of the National Assembly if he remained in government service and two years had not passed since he left it or got retired. The same condition, he said, applied to the election of the president of Pakistan. He asked: “How can Gen Musharraf become the president when he is in uniform and not qualified to become member of the assembly?”

The PPP leader felt that the advisers and ministers of the present government had deliberately been pushing the government towards crisis and creating legal and constitutional problems for the president. “Instead of depending on small-time parties, which had no say among the masses, the General should start meaningful dialogues with the real political forces like PPP and PML.

About the referendum, he asked how the government would determine the percentage of how many voters had participated in it. He added that for the first time in the history there would be no percentage of participation in the referendum. He added that the logic behind reducing the age of a voter for the referendum from 21 years to 18 years was not known.