Wednesday, January 2, 2008
ISLAMABAD, Jan 1: Pakistan Muslim League president Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain has said that his party will accept whatever decision the Election Commission takes about the coming polls.
Addressing a news conference here on Tuesday, he said the PML-Q was ready to take part in the polls, whether they were held on January 8 or on a later date.
He said his party would, however, inform the commission about the law and order situation in Sindh created by certain elements after the assassination of Pakistan People’s Party chairperson Benazir Bhutto.
He said that if he demanded a postponement of the polls it would be taken as a sign of his party’s weakness and if he agreed to the January 8 date, the PML-Q leaders from Sindh would find it difficult to accept it in view of the precarious situation in their province where even offices of the EC had been attacked and election material destroyed.
Asked if he would like to demand dismissal of the Sindh government which had failed to protect people’s life and property, Chaudhry Shujaat said: “It did not have adequate means to control law and order”.
The PML-Q chief said his party would like the conditions to be made more conducive to the holding of elections.
He said the parties which had been demanding elections on time were interested only in grabbing power and were not concerned about the integrity of Pakistan.
PML-Q secretary general Mushahid Hussain Sayed, information secretary Senator Tariq Azeem and former Sindh chief minister Arbab Ghulam Rahim were present at the press conference.
Earlier, Chaudhry Shujaat presided over a meeting of the party’s candidates for the National Assembly from all over the country.
Sources told Dawn that Arbab Rahim had given an account of the ‘horrendous situation’ in Sindh over the past five days. He said that homes of PML-Q leaders had been attacked in the interior of the province.
According to the sources, the candidates from Sindh said that elections should not be held in the next couple of months, but most candidates from Punjab, the NWFP and Balochistan wanted the polls to be held on schedule.
The meeting adopted a resolution criticising PPP co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari for levelling baseless allegations against the PML-Q and abusing the name of the Quaid-i-Azam by calling it ‘Qatil League’.
Through another resolution, it demanded formation of a commission to probe into the circumstances leading to the assassination of Ms Bhutto and to punish those who were falsely implicating the PML-Q leaders in her murder.
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