ISLAMABAD, 3 April — Hard-line religious groups rejected yesterday President Pervez Musharraf’s plans to call a referendum to legitimize his military rule for five more years.
Leaders of six religious parties, also opposed to Musharraf’s support for the US-led war on terror and his crackdown on militants, vowed to mobilize public support against the planned referendum.
“We unanimously reject the presidential referendum as unconstitutional and we have decided to go to people to ask them to boycott it,” Shah Ahmad Noorani, head of the Muttahidda Majlis-e-Amal, or United Action Committee (UAC), multiparty grouping, told a news conference. Musharraf, who took power in a coup in October 1999, left the country’s journalists in no doubt on Saturday he would hold a referendum soon.
Musharraf said he needed more time to push through the economic and political reforms to bring stability in the country. “He should have called the referendum before handing over the country’s military bases to the United States,” Noorani said of Musharraf’s backing for the US-led war on terror. “There is no provision in the constitution that provides for the election of the president through a referendum,” he added.
Qazi Hussain Ahmad, the head of the Jamaat-i-Islami party, filed a petition in the Supreme Court challenging the move.
His lawyer, Farooq Hassan, told reporters that while the Supreme Court had legitimized Musharraf’s power grab, it also bound him to holding elections by October this year and did not empower him to hold a referendum.
Interior Minister Moinuddin Haider said on Sunday Musharraf wanted a direct mandate from the people. All major political parties have opposed a referendum, but Musharraf told the reporters he was prepared to take the risk of a negative vote. “It is constitutionally wrong and morally perverse for the general to make his personal aggrandizement and lust for power as national issues,” said a spokesman for the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) of twice-elected and twice-dismissed former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.
The Pakistan Muslim League (PML) faction led by Benazir’s archrival and former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif also vowed to resist a referendum.
Musharraf, now enjoying international support over his support for the war on terror, has ruled out any political role for both former prime ministers, who are living in exile.
The Supreme Court endorsed Musharraf’s bloodless coup, but told him to hold elections by October — a deadline Musharraf says he will meet. UAC leaders said they would contest the elections jointly.
“We have unanimously passed a manifesto and a constitution of the alliance for the upcoming elections,” he said adding that a parliamentary board would decide the details later, said Noorani.
The religious groups have never fared well in general elections.
