ISLAMABAD, Sept 7: Speakers on Friday termed independence of judiciary an essential prerequisite for free and fair elections and warned against any attempts to curtail the tenure of the chief justice of Pakistan (CJP).

Speaking at a seminar on the role of political parties and the civil society in the upcoming elections, they said such a move would be tantamount to attack on the independence of judiciary and would be resisted with full force.

They said the people would stand united to preserve the independence won by the judiciary as a result of the bold stand taken by Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry and the struggle launched by lawyers, which was supported by political forces, civil society and people from different walks of life.

Those who addressed the seminar included Leader of the Opposition in the Senate Mian Raza Rabbani, Pakistan Tehrik-i- Insaf Chairman Imran Khan and Pakistan Liberal Forum Chairman Asif Khan.

Mian Raza Rabbani said an independent judiciary had an important role to play in a democratic society, adding that any attempt to take away the independence of the judiciary would be strongly opposed in and outside the parliament.

He said the constitution provided for trichotomy of power between the organs of the state including judiciary, parliament and the executive.

He said all the organs should be allowed to function independently.

He called for an independent Election Commission in the country and said the commission could not prove its independence merely by throwing disqualification references filed against an opposition leader.

Mr Rabbani said the Chief Election Commissioner was on record to have said that the president should not address public rallies, but Gen Pervez Musharraf addressed a public meeting in favour of the ruling PML-Q the very next day and that too in uniform.

He pointed out that Gen Musharraf had also announced that he himself would award party tickets for the upcoming general elections.

“Why the Chief Election Commissioner has not questioned Musharraf for it”, he asked.

Mr Rabbani said there was no change in PPP’s principled stand to oppose a president in uniform.

“A president in uniform would not be acceptable to the people of Pakistan and an attempt by Musharraf to get himself re- elected from the present assemblies would be nothing short of political bankruptcy.”

He said there would be legal hitches obstructing Musharraf’s re-election even without uniform. He said there was no role for the army in politics.

The role of the armed forces has been defined in Articles 243 and 245 of the constitution and these must not go beyond that, he added.

Mr Rabbani was of the view that the connotation of a “deal” between Musharraf and PPP Chairperson Benazir Bhutto was not appropriate.

He said negotiations were however going on between the government and the PPP with focus on repealing Article 58 (2) (b) that gave power to the president to dissolve the assemblies, free and fair elections, preparation of accurate and error free electoral rolls and abrogation of the person specific legislation that bars election of a prime minister for the third tenure.

PTI Chairman Imran Khan said the forces of status quo would want the Supreme Court to be deprived of the independence it had won after a massive struggle. He accused President Gen Pervez Musharraf of manipulating the entire system and trying to weaken the institutions to perpetuate his rule.

“He would have succeeded had he not miscalculated the things on March 9,” he observed.

Mr Khan said Pakistan was at a crossroads today and the political parties, civil society and the general public must not act as silent spectators and play a proactive role to benefit from the golden opportunity of eliminating military’s role in politics once and for all.

He said the artificial divide between leftists and rightists and extremists and moderates was dangerous for the country.

He said talibanisation in Pakistan was the reaction to the anti- Islamic agenda being pursued to appease the United States.

The PTI chief said the people talked about extremism in Pakistan but nobody talked about extremists in other countries.

He pointed out that RSS party of India had ethnic cleansing of Muslims in its charter. He also referred to some Western authors whose work smacks of extremism.

Asif Khan said the doors for military intervention in the future could be closed if the political parties organised themselves.

He termed the Muttahida Qaumi Movement a terrorist party and said the events of May 12 projected by the media clearly proved that it had not yet closed its militant wing.

He supported the idea of increasing the number of constituencies to ensure that the people from middle class could also win the elections.