LAHORE, Oct 9: The Bar expects a low voter turnout in the election on Thursday (today) and political instability in the country after the general elections.

Lahore High Court Bar Association secretary Shahid Mahmood Bhatti and others expressed the apprehensions during a meeting with a four-member Saarc Election Observes Commission at the high court here on Wednesday.

They said low turnout was expected during polling because the leaders of major political parties had not been allowed to participate in the general election. The election activity had remained at low ebb because of the confusion created by the government regarding holding of elections according to the schedule, they added.

The Bar leaders were of the view that a strong and stable government was not likely to be formed as the government had allowed only the politicians of its choice to contest the election. Those not acceptable to the government had been barred from participation in the election. The Chief Election Commissioner had been hand in glove with the government in its plan to screen out its opponents, they maintained.

They said the prime minister headed the executive in a democratic parliamentary system but Gen Musharraf wanted the president to be more powerful.

They said the prime minister should exercise all the powers on behalf of the parliament and the president should only be the figurehead of the country according to the democratic traditions. The Chief of Army Staff should not aspire for a strategic place in the post-election setup as power in a democracy could be enjoyed only by the elected representatives of the people and the COAS was required to work under a federal secretary, they told the Saarc delegation.

They said the Bar had already rejected all the amendments by President Pervez Musharraf to the Constitution along with the Legal Framework Order, 2002, promulgated last month because the lawyers believed that the general did not have the power to do so.

They said politicians had undertaken to undo all the constitutional amendments made by the general and scrap his LFO after the parliament was in place following the elections.