“They (Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and Pervaiz Elahi) are now hobnobbing with certain other army generals, leaving President Musharraf in lurch and the country in chaos in their bid to stay in power,” Punjab PPP information secretary Farzana Raja told a news conference here.
She alleged that the Chaudhrys had been misguiding Gen Musharraf on his uniform. “They have emphatically been pleading with him to retain his uniform to seek re-election to a second five-year term in the Presidency from the existing assemblies; they are on record saying that they will elect Musharraf in uniform. Both their pleas are in sharp conflict with the 1973 Constitution; their advices mean that they want Musharraf to land in more serious trouble”, she claimed.
Also an MPA, the PPP official said that the Chaudhrys were also behind the controversial regime’s assertions about the imposition of martial law, enforcement of emergency and extending the tenure of assemblies. The people knew well that several such threats had also come directly from the Chaudhrys, she said and added that they were responsible for the present critical situation.
She said the Chaudhrys contacts with religious extremists were also not a secret. She said the country was now in the grip of ‘commission mafia’ and it was also having a close nexus with the people from Gujrat. “Those at the helm of affairs should now identify their real enemies”, she said.
Ms Raja said that the PPP was not striking a deal with the government. The party, she said, was in negotiations with the regime only for the purpose of initiating a national reconciliation process to establish democracy and pull the country out of the chaotic condition.
Answering a question, she said that chairperson Benazir Bhutto had decided to return home ‘sooner than anyone expects’. The party had already started a process to make preparations for Ms Bhutto’s reception in Pakistan. The first of a series of such meetings would be held in Lahore on Sept 8. This would be followed by similar meetings in Multan on Sept 9, Faisalabad on Sept 10, Sargodha on Sept 11, Rawalpindi on Sept 12 and Gujranwala on Sept 13. Punjab PPP president Shah Mahmood Qureshi would chair all preparatory meetings, she added.
Similar meetings were also being held in other provinces, according to Ms Raja. —Correspondent