March 28, 2008	Friday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 19, 1429

LAHORE, March 27: President Pervez Musharraf and the Pakistan People’s Party will work together for five years in the light of an agreement reached between the two sides about a year ago as a result of talks in London and Dubai, a central PML-Q leader said on Thursday.

Pervaiz Elahi, the party’s parliamentary leader in the National Assembly, told Dawn that the PML-N was trying to throw spanners in the works and create a situation for fresh polls in about six months. However, he believed that the president and the PPP would jointly frustrate such plans.

The PML-Q leader, who lost the prime ministerial election to PPP’s Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani, said the PPP was being facilitated by the president in all respects and it was for this reason that although the PML-Q had emerged as the single largest party in Balochistan the PPP was being asked to form a coalition there. He said the MQM’s willingness to cooperate with the PPP in Sindh was also because of the president’s role.

“This means that everything is going according to the understanding between the PPP and the president.”

He was all praise for the maturity shown by Mr Asif Ali Zardari in handling the situation. However, he was critical of the PML-N leadership which, according to him, was on the path of confrontation with the president for its own interests.

“The PML-N leaders want another election within six months. They think they will win an absolute majority in the next election, defeating all other parties”, said the PML-Q leader, rejecting such assessment as gross miscalculations.

Pervaiz Elahi said the president had dropped all cases against the PPP leadership and facilitated their return to Pakistan because of the agreement between the two sides. He said the president was determined to work with the PPP-led coalition and `strengthen the democratic system’.

Ruling out the possibility of the president stepping down under pressure from various parties, the PML-Q leader said demands for his resignation were being made for the past several years.

He also saw no need for the president to seek a confidence vote from the new parliament. He said the president had been elected for five years and he was under no constitutional obligation to seek a fresh trust vote from the legislators.