HYDERABAD, July 11: The Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) has called upon the government not to tinker with the constitution, hold fair, transparent and impartial elections and leave the constitutional amendments to elected parliament.

Speaking at a news conference here on Thursday, the Sindh president of the MMA, Asadullah Bhutto, also demanded appointment of a new chief election commissioner saying if the elections were held under supervision of Justice (Retd) Irshad Ahmed Khan, they would lead to chaos.

He said the government had sought public opinion on the amendments’ package just to hoodwink the people otherwise everything had been decided behind closed doors.

He said the alliance had already rejected the so-called constitutional package, code of conduct and political parties act. The MMA leader also rejected the ordinance about religious schools and criticized the government interference into the affairs of Madaris .

He said both the internal and foreign policies of the government had miserably failed and the ban imposed on Umra visa by the government of Saudi Arabia spoke volumes for the failure of the foreign policy.

Bhutto said after Afghanistan, America was interfering into internal affairs of Iraq which was an open challenge to the world community. He added America was performing the role of an international “Moula Jatt”.

The Sindh secretary general of the MMA, Dr Khalid Mehmood Soomro, said President Gen Pervez Musharraf wanted to convert Pakistan into a secular state as he had accepted slavery of America.

He said Gen Musharraf was making all out efforts to bring his cronies into power and warned if any rigging was committed in the general elections like the presidential referendum, it would plunge the country into a civil war.

OFFICE-BEARERS: The MMA has completed the organisational setup for the districts of Sindh with appointment of the officer-bearers of Hyderabad district at a meeting of the district executive committee of the alliance held in Paretabad.