By Muhammad Najeeb, IANS
Islamabad : The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) said Wednesday that it will field a candidate in the forthcoming presidential elections if Pervez Musharraf, with whom it is negotiating a power-sharing deal, was disqualified to run for a second term as president.
“We have decided to field Makhdoom Amin Fahim in the presidential elections… he will be our candidate if Musharraf was disqualified by the Supreme Court or the Election Commission,” PPP spokesman Farhatullah Babar told reporters here Wednesday.
He said the party was also considering options in case Musharraf was allowed to contest the elections scheduled for Oct 6.
The party thus does not plan to contest directly against Musharraf, who has held talks with PPP chairperson and former prime minister Benazir Bhutto over a possible power-sharing agreement.
The Supreme Court is hearing several petitions against Musharraf for keeping two offices, that of president and army chief. It is also expected to give its verdict this week on Musharraf’s candidature.
According to the Pakistani constitution, no government servant can stand for a public office until after two years of service. However, Musharraf, who gained power as army chief in 1999 got himself elected as president and retained the office of the army chief, is now running for a second term.
He has pledged to step down as military chief and restore civilian rule if he was again elected as president. But a government lawyer said Tuesday Musharraf would remain army chief even if he was not re-elected.
That has fuelled opposition claims, denied by the government, that Musharraf could be preparing to declare a state of emergency. The lawyers and opposition have threatened to launch a protest campaign Thursday if Musharraf’s nomination was filed.
The lawyers have also announced former Supreme Court judge Wajihuddin Ahmed as their candidate for the upcoming presidential elections.
Siddique ul-Farooq, a spokesman for former prime minister Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-N party, said its senators would support Ahmed’s candidacy and its other lawmakers would resign from the assemblies “as a strategy to block the way of Pervez Musharraf”.