May 14, 2008	Wednesday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 8, 1429

LAHORE, May 13: A senior PML-Q leader on Tuesday proposed that Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry should agree to step down after getting reinstated in a dignified manner and President Musharraf should seek a fresh election to prove that he enjoyed the support of his electoral college.

Ishaq Khakwani said, while talking to reporters, the state of uncertainty would not come to an end unless the president and the deposed chief justice rose above “their personal interests”.

He said since Justice Chaudhry had also taken oath under the controversial Provisional Constitution Order, he was not different from other judges who were being reviled just for this reason. But, he said, people took him as a symbol of resistance to dictatorship and independence of the judiciary.

He said the national interest demanded that the deposed chief justice should agree to quit a few days after being reinstated as a result of some resolution or legislation. Similarly, he said, the president should face another election to show that he enjoyed support of the existing assemblies.

Anybody desirous of challenging President Musharraf should also be allowed to contest the election. And once Musharraf won the poll, all political parties should accept him without any reservations as the legitimate president of the country.

The Senate, the National Assembly and all four provincial legislatures elect the president.

Gen Musharraf was elected president for a term of five years in October last year, only weeks before the assemblies that chose him were completing their term. His critics said the election was void as an outgoing assembly could not elect him for five years.

Khakwani was of the view that the situation at present was similar to the one in 1993 when the then president Ghulam Ishaq Khan and prime minister Nawaz Sharif were challenging each other. Their continued confrontation forced the then army chief Gen Waheed Kakar to mount pressure on both of them to quit.

After the president and the prime minister resigned, fresh elections were held in 1993 that brought the PPP of Benazir Bhutto to power.

Khakwani believed that the solution he was proposing could be acceptable to all political parties.