PML-QA hails EU observation

Published August 11, 2002

LAHORE, Aug 10: The Pakistan Muslim League (QA) on Saturday welcomed the proposed monitoring of the upcoming national elections by an observers’ team from the European Union.

“This step would help ensure fair, free and transparent polls,” party chief Mian Muhammad Azhar told a news conference at the Muslim League House on the occasion of joining the party by the noted lawyer S.M.Zafar.

Azhar said his party was getting strengthened daily by the joining of prominent persons and claimed that it wouldemerge victorious in the October polls.

“It will not be the government but the people of Pakistan who will ensure our victory in the forthcoming polls,” he told a questioner.

On prohibition of procession for the election, Mian Azhar said his party would not confront the government on the issue.

Speaking on the occasion, Ch. Pervez Elahi said those joining the party were doing so on their own.

He said PML (QA) fully respect their loyalties and would not describe them as ‘turncoats’.

Constitutional lawyer S.M.Zafar said he had in fact ‘activated himself in the party’ as he had been a Muslim Leaguer throughout his political life.

The 72-year-old lawyer expressed his hope that theparty would benefit from his long experience in thenational politics and felt that he could still contributeto the promotion of democracy and strengthening of theparty.—APP