ISLAMABAD, Feb 26: The All Parties Democratic Alliance (APDM) demanded that President Pervez Musharraf should resign because his policies as well as his political allies were rejected by the people in the Feb 18 elections.

Leaders of the alliance announced on Tuesday that March 9 would be observed as “Judges Day”, and that the alliance would continue its peaceful struggle for reinstatement of the deposed judges, but without creating any trouble for the new government.

At a meeting of the APDM leadership, presided over by Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party president Mehmood Khan Achakzai, they said they would function as a watchdog, but would give considerable time to the government to implement the three-point agenda of restoring the superior judiciary to the position of Nov 2, reviving the Constitution as it was on Oct 12, 1999, and setting up an independent Election Commission.

Addressing a joint news conference at the residence of Jamaat-i-Islami chief Qazi Hussain Ahmed, the leaders of the alliance said: “We see the activities of the US, Britain and other European countries in the aftermath of Feb 18 as clear interference in the sovereign right of the Pakistanis to form their government.”

Qazi Hussain claimed that during his Monday meeting with PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif the latter had told him that his party had obtained in writing a pledge from the PPP about reinstatement of the deposed judges.

He said the alliance viewed the election of Pervez Musharraf for another term as unconstitutional and illegal in the absence of an independent judiciary.

Mr Achakzai said the APDM was working on a one-point agenda of making Pakistan a truly welfare and democratic state and it would only come out when this objective was ignored by the government. He endorsed Mr Sharif’s proposal that the fate of Musharraf should be left to the revived judiciary which should decide about his eligibility to contest for the presidency.

Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaaf chairman Imran Khan said the APDM believed that had the general election been held on Jan 8 it would have been massively manipulated in favour of the PML-Q. But Benazir Bhutto’s sacrifice made the difference and two major parties gained sufficient time to prepare for the election and guard against attempts to rig the polls.