PESHAWAR, Oct 4: Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal senior vice-president Qazi Hussain Ahmad has claimed that the MMA has yet to take decision to join the next government.

During a brief chat with Dawn at Al-Markaz-i-Islami, the Jamaat-i-Islami provincial secretariat here on Thursday, the JI chief said the alliance would take any decision after the new parliament came into existence.

“We are not in a hurry about that,” Qazi remarked when he was asked that whether the alliance would join the next government.

He maintained that in the prevailing situation the chances of free and fair elections were very bleak. The government, he said, was using all tactics to bring favourite people into the next parliament.

He claimed that the alliance had collected evidence about pre- poll rigging and alleged that candidates were being pressurised to support the Kings party.

Later, addressing a public meeting in Badbare, a suburbs of Peshawar, Qazi Hussain Ahmad criticised former prime minister Benazir Bhutto for issuing pro-US statements. He said the former prime minister betrayed the nation and offered her services to US administration to serve its interests.

He said the US government had put pressure on President Gen Pervez Musharraf to join the socalled war against terrorism and begin operation against Al Qaeda activists and withdraw support from the Taliban.

He hoped that the people would reject pro-US and secular elements in the general elections and urged the masses to elect honest and dedicated people. The JI chief said the MMA was determined to promulgate Islamic law in the country in letter and spirit and provide social and economic justice to the people.