ISLAMABAD, 17 September 2007 — Opposition parties yesterday unveiled their plan to block Gen. Pervez Musharraf’s re-election as president for a second term.
The opposition All Parties Democratic Movement (APDM) said its members would resign from the national and provincial assemblies if Musharraf tried to seek re-election from the sitting Parliament.
Musharraf is expected to seek a new mandate before Oct. 15, after which assemblies will be dissolved for a general election around the end of the year.
“His attempt to get re-elected from the current assemblies will be defeated,” Raja Zafarul Haq, chairman of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League, told reporters after the opposition alliance meeting.
Gen. Musharraf is expected to submit his nomination papers to the Election Commission soon.
“We’ll resign on the day President Musharraf’s nomination papers are accepted,” Haq said.
Musharraf does not require opposition support to win the simple majority he needs for another five-year term, but a walkout would damage the credibility of his re-election.
He will also face a raft of legal challenges in the Supreme Court regarded as hostile since his attempt to sack the chief justice last March.
Today, a nine-member bench of the top court will begin hearing a petition against his bid to stand for a second term, and his right to be president and army chief at the same time.
The main constituent of the APDM, the alliance threatening to quit Parliament, is Sharif’s PML faction. Haq said the APDM would hold nationwide protests against the “illegal and unconstitutional” deportation of Sharif on Sept. 10. Critically, the single largest opposition party led by Benazir Bhutto, has stayed outside the APDM.
Opposition leaders — Qazi Hussain Ahmad, Maulana Fazlur Rahman, Raja Zafarul Haq, Imran Khan, Javed Hashmi, Asfandyar Wali, Mahmud Khan Achakzai — were among those who attended the meeting yesterday in Islamabad. The APDM leaders also decided to move the Supreme Court against the order issued by Musharraf on Saturday making amendment to electoral rules.
Benazir said yesterday allies of President Musharraf opposed to sharing power with her party were pushing Pakistan toward anarchy. Benazir has been in talks with Musharraf for months on a pact that could defuse legal challenges to his re-election bid and let her return and compete in parliamentary elections.
In a telephone interview with the Associated Press, Benazir said that the group was advising Musharraf to contest the presidential election without giving up his role as army chief.
“We all know that any election in uniform would be illegal. But they prefer to play with the Constitution and create a crisis rather than have a smooth transition to democracy,” she said.
