ISLAMABAD , 30 October— President Pervez Musharraf said yesterday his government was in no way trying to influence the formation of a civilian coalition following Oct. 10 polls.
"The political process is on in the country and the government has no role in it," Musharraf told reporters before leaving for a two-day visit to Saudi Arabia.
The remarks came after some politicians expressed concern that a weekend meeting between Musharraf and a leader of the mainstream Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) showed the general was working behind the scenes to engineer a coalition, even though he has pledged to stay out of the process.
Musharraf said his meeting with Makhdoom Amin Faheem, an aide to exiled former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, at a hilltop restaurant near Islamabad was a coincidence.
"Some people are saying that the meeting was pre-planned or designed... These are totally wrong and baseless assertions," he added. "Our meeting lasted two or three minutes. We just exchanged pleasantries," he said.
He said the reason for the delay in calling what will be the first civilian Parliament since he seized power in coup in 1999, was due to challenges of some election results in court.
"The Parliament will be convened as soon as the matter is settled," he said.
Voters returned a splintered mandate in the elections, with the three largest parties — divided on ideological lines — still struggling to cobble together a coalition.
As Musharraf embarked on his first overseas trip since the elections there was still no sign that the major political parties had come close to an agreement on the makeup of a coalition or who should lead it.
Musharraf said that besides holding talks with the Saudi leaders on the regional issues and the India-Pakistan dispute over Kashmir, he will also perform Umrah to express gratitude to Allah for enabling him to keep his promise of restoring democracy in the country.
More than two weeks after the poll, the pro-Musharraf Pakistan Muslim League Quaid-e-Azam or PML (Q), which emerged as the largest party, and the PPP, which came in second, have yet to announce their candidates for the premiership
Both parties have been trying to woo an alliance of hard-line groups, the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), that emerged as potential coalition partner after the elections.
However, the MMA, which rode a wave of anti-Western feeling over the US-led war on terror in Afghanistan and won an unprecedented 45 seats, insists it should lead any future coalition government.
Musharraf, who ahead of the polls awarded himself the power to dismiss the elected Parliament and ensured a major role for the military to oversee the workings of government, had promised to hand power to a civilian administration around Nov. 1.
However this deadline appears likely to be missed.
