LAHORE, July 16: Rejecting opposition’s assertions to the contrary, Punjab Chief Minister Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi insists that the present assemblies can elect Gen Musharraf as president for another term, allowing him to retain his military uniform.

In view of the `services’ he rendered and the `stability’ he brought about, the general must be chosen for another five years, the chief minister said at a news conference at his residence.

The present assemblies, he said, had every constitutional, political and moral justification to re-elect Gen Musharraf.

Former law minister Dr Khalid Ranjha, also present on the occasion, endorsed this point of view, dismissing the argument that Gen Musharraf would be completing his “second” term in office in November next year, and stood disqualified under the Constitution as a candidate for the top office again.

The chief minister maintained the opposition’s argument about the general’s ineligibility was without any substance.

Referring to threats that the opposition would quit the assemblies en masse to block Gen Musharraf’s bid to get himself another term, Pervaiz Elahi said the government would get `better’ people elected on the vacant seats. He said having vacated their seats voluntarily opposition parties would have little justification to put up their candidates in the by-elections.

The resignations card would fail to bring the results desired by the opposition, claimed the chief minister.

About the possibility of the exiled leaders’ return home, he said that he had been hearing the `rhetoric’ for years, but neither of the two former prime ministers was expected back in the country in the foreseeable future.

Dr Ranjha, who was law minister during the period between the October 1999 takeover and the October 2002 polls, said Mr Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto had completed two terms each in office and could not contest for a third time.

According to him, Gen Musharraf had started his “first” term as president in November 2002, which would complete in November 2007. The existing assemblies were competent to elect him for a second time, he said.

He argued that although Gen Musharraf had become president after Mr Rafiq Tarar had `quit’ in June 2001, the period up to November 2002 could “not” be regarded as a term because the Constitution was in abeyance during the period. He said the general’s term as president would be deemed to have started after the restoration of the Constitution and his election by parliament.

He argued Gen Musharraf was accepted president-in-uniform for a particular period under the Constitution, which had supremacy over the legislature.

He said now there was no bar on the general’s becoming a candidate for a second term and the assemblies reelecting him for the presidential office.

Asked what would become of parliamentary system headed by a president-in-uniform, the former law minister said the nature of the system would remain unchanged as long as the prime minister was the country’s chief executive, and the cabinet was answerable to parliament.

He did not agree to the suggestion that since the eligibility of Gen Musharraf for another term as president had become controversial, the matter should be referred to the Supreme Court for an authoritative verdict.

The apex court was not meant for `academic debates’, he said.

The chief minister said at present there was only one PML, and it was headed by Chaudhry Shujaat Husain. As for the faction headed by Mr Nawaz Sharif, he said it had ceased to exist after it “merged” itself with the PPP. He said the future politics of the exiled former prime minister would be from the PPP’s platform.

Pervaiz Elahi claimed poverty and unemployment had come down in Punjab over the past three years thanks to the development activities initiated by his government.

He said he had raised Punjab’s development budget from Rs13 billion to Rs100 billion in three years.