KARACHI, Sept 28: President of the Pakistan Muslim League (Zia-ul-Haq), Ejaz-ul-Haq, has said that the outcome of the October 10th elections would be a hung parliament.

Addressing a press conference at Karachi Press Club on Saturday, he said that the leaders of the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) and the Pakistan Peoples Party had been bluffing about the return of their leaders Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto, despite knowing the fact that they could not return home and enjoyed no more popular support.

He claimed that both the parties, foreseeing defeat in the election, had been looking for some excuse to boycott the elections.

Referring to the role of the army in the future setup, Ejaz-ul-Haq said that in Pakistan there was no democratic culture like that of India and other democratic countries. The army had ruled the country with some intermissions and since 1988, instead of democracy there had been a troika rule. Therefore, the army should to be given a formal role of responsibility by setting up the national security council.

He said that if the security council had been formed in 1988, the army would not have been in a position to differ with the government on sensitive issues.

In response to a question about the repressive measures unleashed by his father and former president of Pakistan, General Ziaul Haq against newsmen, he said that though they could not be defended, yet a similar approach was pursued by the democratic governments also.

Earlier, on arrival at the Karachi Press Club, he offered juice to Awami Tehreek chief Maulvi Iqbal Haider and his colleagues, who were on a token hunger strike to express solidarity with the Christian community and against terrorism.