PESHAWAR, Jan 4: Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal president Qazi Hussain Ahmad has expressed the desire of relinquishing his post and electing another suitable person with consensus of component parties of the alliance.

“It is my desire now to quit as the alliance’s president and it would be my resolve to get another leader elected for the next tenure with consultation of all component parties,” Mr Ahmad said while addressing a press conference here on Thursday.

He said that he would convene the MMA’s supreme council meeting on Jan 11 for resolving some thorny issues, including its elections, resignations from parliament and general elections.

The MMA leader said that central leaders of the alliance would be returning on Jan 10 after performing Haj. “All arrangements for the supreme council’s meeting have been finalised and it is possible to hold it on Jan 11,” he added.

The MMA leader said that the decision regarding resignations of MMA legislators was taken with consensus.

“In the presence of President Gen Pervez Musharraf free and fair elections are impossible,” the MMA leader said, adding that President Musharraf was bent upon destroying the Islamic identity of the country by following American agenda.

Gen Musharraf has also retreated from Islamabad’s stand on Kashmir and in his presence Pakistan would serve as a US colony, Qazi Hussain said.

The Jamaat-i-Islami chief said that President Musharraf, through his anti-Islam steps, wanted to join the three-member exclusive club of the US, Israel and India and for the same reason he had withdrawn from the stand on Kashmir.

In reply to a question about the statement of Maulana Fazlur Rehman, he said that the MMA’s supreme council had decided it with consensus to resign after the passage of the Women’s Protection Bill and not to participate in polls under President Musharraf. He said that the decision regarding resignations from Parliament was final.

The JI leader said that first they would oust President Musharraf from power through their movement and then participate in polls.

About fencing and planting mines along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, he said it was inhuman and violation of the Durand Line Agreement. He said that tribal people lived on both sides of the border and they enjoyed the rights to move across the border under the agreement.