New Delhi: Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf’s spokesperson has denied a British newspaper’s report that he would resign in a “matter of days”.
The Sunday Telegraph, while quoting unnamed aides to Musharraf, said that the Pakistani leader would quit in a “matter of days and not months”.
"He has already started discussing the exit strategy for himself," a friend of Musharraf reportedly told the newspaper. "I think it is now just a matter of days and not months because he would like to make a graceful exit on a high," the source said.
Presidential spokesperson Major Rashid Qureshi dismissed the report and said the general elections in the country on February 18 must not be regarded as a referendum on Musharraf.
“Everyone knows that the elections were not a presidential election and Musharraf is not involved in government formation. I think one should not attach much credence to the report. Nothing of this sort has been discussed in the President's office," said Qureshi.
According to The Sunday Telegraph, Musharraf would rather resign than wait to be impeached and forced out of office by the parties which won the elections.
"He may have made many mistakes, but he genuinely tried to build the country and he doesn't want to destroy it just for the sake of his personal office," an unnamed official close to Musharraf told the newspaper.
Musharraf had last week said that he would not resign though the Pakistan Muslim League (Q), which backed him, was defeated in the election.
But now Musharraf wants to avoid a power struggle with the new National Assembly, in which the Pakistan People’s Party and the Pakistan Muslim League (N) will be close to the two-thirds majority needed to impeach him and remove him from office, says the newspaper.
Musharraf is “sulking” after the PML (Q) and PPP’s good performance in the elections, reports another British newspaper, The Guardian.
"The spectacular rout of his PML (Q) party at the polls has shorn the retired commando of his political base, leaving him
isolated and exposed," a report in The Guardian said.
Quoting an unnamed PML-Q The Guardian: "He has been sulking. He's retreated into a mental bunker, which is not healthy. He thinks everyone is out to get him and only listens to a small circle. It's a dangerous mindset to be in at this point in time. He could decide to hit back.
"Musharraf's bad mood stems from the prospect of Nawaz Sharif, the prime minister from Punjab he ousted in a 1999 coup and banished to Saudi Arabia a year later, returning to power."
Meanwhile, the Pakistan People's Party asked the Musharraf regime to invite it to form the new government.
The party also demanded that the army stop operations against nationalist groups in Balochistan immediately and release all political prisoners there including Baloch leader Akhtar Mengal.
The PPP on Saturday indicated that the new government would not seek Musharraf’s impeachment immediately. "I think there's no need at the moment but the Parliament is sovereign. Once we go to the Parliament, the Parliament will look at every issue. We should not rock the boat at this time. We must have civil transition of power from the military to the civilians," PPP’s Prime Ministerial nominee Makhdoom Amin Fahim said.
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