PESHAWAR, Oct 13: President of Pakistan People’s Party, NWFP, Khwaja Mohammad Khan Hoti, on Saturday termed Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal’s victory in the election rigged and pre-planned, but said the PPP will support even the “lame democracy” against military dictatorship.

Speaking to newsmen at his residence, Mr Hoti showed signed ballot-papers packs, which according to him PPP workers had snatched from MMA workers in Mardan on Thursday. The MMA leaders had distributed signed ballot-papers among them, he said.

He disagreed with the impression that any popular religious wave had swept the province and paved the way for the MMA’s land-slide victory. Why this wave hit peripheral districts and didn’t envelop eastern districts in Hazara, he asked.

PPP Chairperson Benazir Bhutto, he said, had pointed out to a television channel that all had been set to get MMA elected in NWFP.”It’s a deliberate move to scare the Americans out of the MMA spectre,” he said.

The forces behind the MMA, he said, had sent a message to the West that the progressive, liberal and democratic forces had failed. They had installed the fundamentalists to exploit the West in their name, he added.

“We, being a major political force, will oppose the wrongdoings of the MMA government, but we will not indulge in leg-pulling,” the PPP leader said.

Despite PPP’s reservations, he said, his party would give a chance to the MMA to complete its five-year tenure in power. “We will not make any opposition for the sake of opposition. It is their right to rule the province,” he said.

Replying to a question, he said the PPP’s leadership would decide to which party it would extend support for the formation of the government. “If MMA translates what it pledged with the people on the restoration of the Constitution and doing away with the Legal Framework Order, the PPP will support them,” he added.