QUETTA, Aug 19: People’s Party Parliamentarians Senior Vice-President Mir Baz Khan Khetran on Monday offered providing security to the European Union mission during its visit to Balochistan for monitoring elections process.

Speaking at a press conference before leaving for Islamabad, he said teams of the EU and the Commonwealth would visit Balochistan soon.

“PPP is ready to cooperate with the government for providing full protection to the team in Balochistan,” Baz Khetran said and added that PPP workers would perform duties as guards during the observers’ visit to the interior of Balochistan.

He said the government planned to influence election results and support its favourite party’s candidates. PPP Parliamentarians President Amin Fahim during his meeting with President Gen Musharraf had informed him about the party’s apprehension and reservations in this connection, he said.

Khetran said that any attempt to rig the elections would damage the country’s reputation and harm the future of democracy and democratic institutions.

He criticized the government for changing polling stations.

The PPP leader said the Election Commission should take notice of transfers and posting of officers despite its instruction.

He said the people of Balochistan would face difficulties because of the graduation condition for candidates.

He said it would have been better if the condition for Balochistan had been relaxed to intermediate in view of backwardness of the province but the PPP would not face any difficulty in putting up graduate candidates in Balochistan.

He said the situation about the party candidates would be clear after Aug 25.

He said his party had made contacts with Balochistan National Party (Mengal), National Awami Party Pakistan and Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam about seat adjustment.

He said the PPP had decided to extend its support to the potential candidates from opposition parties and “PPP and Pakistan Muslim League had negotiated at central level for seat adjustments.” He said negotiations were in progress in this regard.

Replying to a question, he said the PPP would field candidates on all national and provincial assembly seats in the province but would contest according to seat adjustments with other parties.

NEGOTIATION COMMITTEE: People’s Party Parliamentarians, Balochistan, has formed a committee, led by Nawab Aslam Raisani, to hold talks with other parties for seat adjustment in the province, acting president of PPP, Balochistan, Javed Ahmed, said at a press conference at Raisani House.

He said the committee would include Jamal Jogezai, Mian Saifullah Khan Peracha, Mir Baz Mohammad Khan Khetran, Shafiq Ahmed Khan, Hadyatullah Pirzada, Iqbal Shah, Raja Shamsher and Dashti Khan Jatak.

Replying to a question, he denied any deal with the military government and said the PPP wanted to get assurance from the government for holding fair, free and transparent elections.

He said the PPP had never compromised on the rights of the people and had always struggled for the restoration of democracy and democratic institutions.

He said the military government had tried its best to keep the PPP and its leadership away from the elections but the party had foiled all such attempts.

He alleged that the government was favouring PML (Quaid-i-Azam) but added that the people would reject the elements in the elections who had change their loyalties.