ISLAMABAD, Nov 20: President Gen Pervez Musharraf’s address to the nation on the eve of transfer of power to the elected representatives left opposition leaders wondering as to what was the significance of the speech laden with oft-repeated claims.

“We have been told these things innumerable times,” Jamaat-i-Islami’s Naib Amir Liaquat Baloch said in his reaction to the president’s speech.

Since Gen Musharraf claimed to be the duly elected president, he should come and make such speeches before the elected National Assembly, Baloch said.

“The joke is that after three years Musharraf is still asking the nation to have patience,” former deputy chairman of the Planning Commission and a senior leader of Pakistan Muslim League (N), Ahsan Iqbal, said in his gut reaction.

The Pakistan People’s Party termed the president’s speech a pack of lies.

“General Musharraf’s several tall claims, including that of steering the country onto the democratic course is yet another self-serving untruth in the series of untruths manufactured by the regime during the last three years to advance its own political agenda,” PPP spokesman Farhatullah Babar said.

On the economic performance of the government, Baloch said irrespective of the claims of Gen Musharraf, the plight of the common man had gone from bad to worse in the past three years.

Commenting on the country’s foreign exchange reserves, he said, the whole nation was fully aware of the fact that these had nothing to do with the government’s economic policies.

Iqbal said all the development projects mentioned by Musharraf in his speech had been initiated by the previous government of the PML.

Islamabad-Peshawar motorway project, Lahore ring road project, Bund road project, Northern by-pass, Makran coastal highway and Gwadar port project were all initiated during the tenure of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, he recalled.

“Irony is that none of these projects has been completed in the last three years,” he added.

He said all these projects, including those related to water resources development projects, had been included in the public sector development plan (PSDP) of 1999.

Regarding the educational and information technology projects mentioned by Musharraf in his speech, he said, all these had been part of the 2010 programme of the previous government.

He regretted that the present government cut the size of these projects by more than half.

“Common man is suffering at the hands of policies borrowed by the present government from the IMF and the World Bank,” he added.

Iqbal flayed Gen Musharraf for “setting bad traditions in politics.” Legacy of the Musharraf government would be revival of horse-trading and rigging, he further said.

Referendum fraud, pre-poll rigging, rigging on the election day and post-poll rigging, which culminated in the rigging during the election of the National Assembly speaker, would be the legacy of Musharraf government, he added.

The PPP spokesman said the promise of holding general elections in October was fulfilled but not without massive pre-poll, polls day and post-poll rigging and manipulation.

“Five different executive edicts were made into laws, some given backdated effect, to prevent the leadership of the PPP from participating,” Babar said.

He charged the government of ruthlessly using state agencies to factionalise the mainstream political parties.

“Even on the day when the Constitution was revived the operations of article pertaining to floor-crossing was suspended to enable agencies continue creating forward blocks,” he added.

“The military dictatorship sought the backing of the west by brandishing the threat of religious turmoil. It sought to convince the world that the fight in Pakistan was not between one political party and the other but between military dictatorship and religious extremism,” the PPP spokesman said.

“Thus, while a self-professed tutor of Mulla Omar was allowed to participate and enter the parliament the leader of the Pakistan’s largest political party and the twice elected prime minister was barred as the general promised to bring in new faces for the country’s future,” Babar further said.

PML-N acting president Javed Hashmi said the government had thrown merit to the wind by inducting inexperienced and incapable retired and serving officers of army in civilian jobs.

The president, instead of fulfilling the promise of restoring democracy in the country, had usurped the power by a fake referendum, he added.