WASHINGTON, May 17: Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaf chief Imran Khan has said the next election in Pakistan will be a direct contest between those who support President Gen Pervez Musharraf and those who oppose him. “By the time we have the next general elections, we would see two broad-based political alliances in the country, pro-Musharraf and anti-Musharraf,” Mr Khan told a news conference here.
He said the MMA and the ARD were already moving towards a greater alliance and his party would also join it for the restoration of democracy.
Mr Khan claimed that President Musharraf has totally isolated himself and “today he has no support from any political group, not even from those who are in the government. They are with him only for the sake of power and not because they share his beliefs.”
President Musharraf’s experiment with controlled democracy, he said, had also failed because he was not willing to share power with the political government. “The prime minister, whether it’s Shaukat Aziz or Zafarullah Jamali, has no power, no authority and everybody knows that. That’s why even the lawmakers of the ruling coalition go to the president for favours, not to the prime minister.”
Mr Khan said he believed the gas pipeline from Iran to India should be built because it would strengthen Pakistan’s economy, but added that the present government would not risk annoying the United States by building the pipeline.
When reminded that India seemed determined to construct the pipeline, he said: “India is a sovereign state, which keeps its national interests ahead of anything else. We do not.”
Mr Khan said it was wrong to portray those who want “national sovereignty to be restored” or were struggling for democracy as anti-America.
“In Pakistan, no political force is against America. There is a desire for restoration of national sovereignty and it is a genuine desire.”
He said he did not believe the present set-up could continue till 2007. “Any small incident can trigger a chain of events that could unravel the entire set-up.”
He said internal differences within the ruling PML were so acute that it could “crumble from within, taking along the entire set-up”.
Mr Khan said that although the US administration supports the Musharraf government, an increase in general discontent could force Washington to reconsider its policy.
He said all major political parties were united on three points: the army should return to barracks; the judiciary should be free of executive control; and the election commission should be free and independent.
The former cricketer said that the reported deal between the government and the PPP had hurt the People’s Party, but PPP leaders had realized that the government was not sincere and were working with other parties to form a greater alliance of democratic forces.
Mr Khan also thanked the Pakistani community in Washington for supporting the Shaukat Khanum Memorial Hospital. On Sunday night he attended a fund raising dinner for the hospital where people donated $175,000 for the treatment of cancer patients in Pakistan.
He would attend similar fund raisers at Denver, Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York.