ISLAMABAD, July 11: The high-command of Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) is not inclined to contest the recent constitutional and legal amendments in the superior courts.
“We have not yet taken the decision to challenge these amendments in the courts,” Deputy Secretary General of PPP Mian Raza Rabbani told Dawn.
“It is not purely a legal decision. It is a politico-legal matter,” he said, adding that the party was still pondering over the issue whether it would be beneficial to have recourse to legal action or to take the matter to the people’s court in the coming elections.
Mr Rabbani said the party was studying the two laws enacted by the government through presidential orders — the Qualification to Hold Public Offices Order, 2002, and the Political Parties Order, 2002.
He said asking the political parties to hold elections in less than a month clearly showed the government’s sinister motive of keeping the major parties out of the electoral arena.
“The PPP will not provide them with this opportunity,” he said, adding that though they had yet to take a decision with regard to holding of election within the party, they could do it within the stipulated time.
“It is undoubtedly a gigantic task. Nonetheless, the party could do it well before the deadline of Aug 5,” he added.
The last elections within the party had been held in 1999, in which Benazir Bhutto had been elected chairperson for life. Under the party’s constitution, elections to the party offices are supposed to be held after every three years.
As regards the latest conviction of Benazir Bhutto, he said it again smacked of the government’s mala fide intentions.
The regime, he added, wanted to create an impression that she could not contest the elections. “There is no law preventing her from contesting the elections,” he added.
Criticising the conviction, he said, it was the commencement of yet another media slander campaign against the PPP and its chairperson.
He alleged that the government was using all the state resources and the entire state apparatus for achieving the desired results and to favour the “king’s party”.
About the application filed by the workers and leaders for the party tickets in the coming elections, he said the party had already completed initial short-listing of the applications and was sifting these for a second short-listing.
The final list of the candidates would be made public shortly after the election schedule was announced.
Mr Rabbani denied reports that the party was cutting a clandestine deal with the regime. “There is no question of any deal with the regime minus Benazir Bhutto,” he added.
LETTERS TO UN: The PPP has decided to write letters to the United Nations repertoire on judges and human rights bodies on alleged subversion of legal process by the military regime.
In a statement issued by a party spokesman to condemn the latest conviction of PPP Chairperson Benazir Bhutto, the military government was accused of subverting the judicial process for political ends.
It termed the latest conviction for allegedly abstaining from court appearance as denial of due process of law to the former prime minister.
An accountability court in Rawalpindi awarded three years imprisonment to Ms Bhutto for not appearing in the ARY gold reference. Earlier, in May last, the same court had convicted Ms Bhutto to three years in jail also for not appearing before it in the SGS pre-shipment inspection case.
He said that last time also defence counsel Advocate Latif Khosa had pleaded before the court that Ms Bhutto had been exempted from appearance by a competent court, that she was deemed to be present in the court through him and that the conviction proceeding was mala fide and illegal, vitiated by personal bias and malice.
The previous conviction coincided with the refusal by the Alliance for Restoration of Democracy to participate in Gen Musharraf’s All Parties Conference.
The conviction on Tuesday had come amid PPP spearheading the campaign against Gen Musharraf’s so-called constitutional package as “fraud aimed at perpetuating his rule,” he claimed.