ISLAMABAD, Aug 3: The Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy (ARD) has welcomed the remarks of US Assistant Secretary of State Christina Rocca on the status of democracy in Pakistan and urged the US to take practical steps for restoration of complete and ‘genuine’ democracy in the country.

Talking to Dawn here on Wednesday, People’s Party Parliamentarians (PPP) Senator Farhatullah Khan Babar and ARD Deputy Information Secretary Munir Ahmed Khan said the opposition had all along believed that (President) Gen Musharraf was misleading the international opinion by insisting that his uniform was essential for stability in the country and fight against terror.

Ms Rocca, while answering questions from Pakistani journalists during a Washington-Islamabad video conference on Tuesday, had said that the US administration did not believe that the president’s uniform guaranteed success of war against international terrorism and that it ensured that Pakistan’s nuclear assets would not fall into the hands of fundamentalists.

Ms Rocca had also said that according to the US policy, free and fair elections, a level-playing field and return to full democracy was the key to long-term prosperity and stability in Pakistan. Mr Khan said Ms Rocca had stressed the need for free and fair general elections in 2007 but had made no comments on the elections held in October 2002.

He said the US should declare that the elections 2002 were ‘managed and rigged’ and the referendum held earlier in the country was illegal. He said if the US had realized that Gen Musharraf’s uniform did not guarantee success of war against terrorism, then ‘it should also dare admit its mistake of supporting the military dictator.’

The ARD leader criticized Ms Rocca for saying it was premature to say that the local body elections were not free and fair. He said it was strange that the US had not taken any notice of reports of pre-poll rigging and the chief ministers’ intervention in the poll process.

Mr Khan said the US should acknowledge the fact that as far as Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif — the two twice elected prime ministers of the country – lived in exile, there would be no democracy in Pakistan.

Senator Babar said that political stability came only with legitimacy and winning war against terrorists and extremists required national consensus that came with democracy alone.

He said Gen Musharraf had entered presidency through referendum and re-written the constitution and, therefore, he had no legitimacy. “He (Gen Musharraf) is at war with the entire civil society as a result of which there is no consensus behind the general.”

The PPP leader said without fair and free elections in which all political parties and leaders were allowed to participate and which were held under an independent election commission with representation from the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, the goal of stability would continue to elude the nation.

He said the PPP welcomed the realization that there was no alternative to fair elections, a level-playing field and return to full democracy for Pakistan’s stability. “The party hopes that the dynamics of this reality will soon remove the fog from the thinking of the military rulers.”