MULTAN: Former foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, who ended his 18 years of association with the Pakistan People’s Party on Monday, has called for an independent election commission and said it is time to go to the people for a fresh mandate.

Addressing a press conference here on Tuesday, he said the present leadership of the PPP had no solution to the country’s external and internal problems and that neither President Asif Ali Zardari nor Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani had the intellectual depth to solve people’s problems. Qureshi said he would announce his future political plan during a visit to Ghotki in Sindh on Nov 27.

Answering a question, he said his relations with PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif had been ‘very good’ and he was ready to meet him.

He said he was going to Dubai to address a think-tank and would meet Mr Sharif on return if he (Mr Sharif) so desired. Mr Qureshi said he had quit the post of foreign minister for the sake of principles because he believed in transparency and transparent politics. He accused President Zardari of having pressurised him to give immunity to Raymond Davis who had shot to death two youths in Lahore in January this year.

He denied PPP leaders’ allegation that he had taken oath from Gen Ziaul Haq and said it was Yousuf Raza Gilani who was a member of the cabinet under the Zia government. He said his father had been associated with Ziaul Haq and he never denied it.

Mr Qureshi said some people considered themselves to be smarter than Benazir Bhutto, but their political vision would not measure up to ‘even her shoes’. “She had appointed me president of the party’s Punjab chapter and I was her candidate for the prime minister’s post in 2002.”

He said the Punjab governor was issuing statements against him only to keep his job. He said Prime Minister Gilani always talked about southern Punjab, but he was least concerned about the low price of cotton in the region where people were not getting the real price of the commodity produced by them. Similarly, urea was selling in the black market and the Gilanigovernment was least bothered.

Mr Qureshi praised MPAs Malik Mohammad Abbas Raan and Dr Akhtar Malik of the PPP who attended the press conference for raising their voice against wrong policies of the government.