LAHORE, June 17: Pakistan People’s Party’s co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari said on Tuesday that the PPP had never recognised President Pervez Musharraf as a constitutional head of state and it continued to hold the view.

“When I was in jail, and Mr Nawaz Sharif was in jail, we had the option of joining Gen Musharraf. But we didn’t. We chose to extend a hand of friendship towards Mr Sharif,” Mr Zardari told newspaper editors and senior journalists at the Governor’s House. Punjab Governor Salman Taseer was also present.

“We have suffered immensely and languished behind bars for years under Gen Musharraf’s rule. But we never supported him. (Even when Gen Musharraf extended an offer to the PPP to form its government after the 2002 elections) we told his emissary that he had to doff his uniform,” Mr Zardari said.

He said Benazir Bhutto had never accepted Gen Musharraf as the constitutional president of the country and it was she who had actually forced him to hang his uniform.

“Now if someone else tries to take the credit for this and our other achievements, it is not fair,” the PPP leader said.

Mr Zardari said the ruling coalition would last for five years in spite of a difference of opinion between him and Mr Sharif on different issues, including the deposed judges and immediate impeachment of the president.

“You don’t find 100 per cent agreement on every issue even in a family. In Sindh and the NWFP, we have difference of opinion on certain issues with our coalition partners. Even our chief minister in Balochistan has reservations on the appointment of the provincial IG (of police) and matters relating to the (provincial) budget. Yet such differences are not unusual in a coalition setup. It is just that we do not have a history of coalitions except for a brief experiment in Sindh,” he said.

“They (the PML-N) have taken a certain position (on the restoration of the pre-Nov 3, 2007, judiciary), which they consider politically advantageous for them. There is another position that we have taken. After all, both the parties have to go into the election tomorrow. This is about politics. So, in my opinion, both the coalition governments (in the centre and Punjab) and the differences would continue to co-exist,” he said.

Mr Zardari said he also wanted reinstatement of the deposed judges. “But it will happen at a time of our choosing. Ms Bhutto did not lay down her life for the reinstatement of Mr Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry as chief justice. She gave her life for democracy,” he said in reply to a question.

The PPP leader laid emphasis on reconciliation to steer the country out of the present political and economic quagmire.

He rebutted a suggestion that he was not agreeing with Mr Sharif on the restoration of the judiciary and impeachment of the president because he wanted to reciprocate Gen (retd) Musharraf’s gesture of quashing all cases against him under the National Reconciliation Ordinance. “Let me tell you that thousands of people have benefited from the NRO, not just me alone. Further, the NRO was issued after the government failed to prove any charge against me and after Gen Musharraf’s cabinet accepted that all the cases against us were politically motivated.”

Mr Zardari said the PPP did not believe in revenge. “We have a political way of seeking revenge. When Ms Bhutto was given oath as prime minister in 1988, she said she had taken revenge from her tormenters. She also insisted on my being sworn in (by president Ghulam Ishaq Khan) as a minister (in 1993). That vindicated our politics.”

He said the country was passing through a dangerous situation with insurgency going on in Balochistan, militants armed with sophisticated weapons daring the state and the military in the NWFP, and Nato increasing its presence in Afghanistan. He said Sindh had not forgotten the killing of Ms Bhutto.

He said there was a method in the ‘madness’ of those who wanted to weaken the institution (of the military) and encourage ‘baradari-ism’.

“I myself am a victim of the army; our party is a victim of the army. But if it is weakened the country will be captured by warlords. And if baradari-ism is allowed to prevail it will eat into the very foundations of the nation. That is why I keep saying that the country is facing a grave danger.”

In reply to a question, he said free judiciary did not mean reinstatement of the deposed judges. “It is about building the capacity of this institution and purging it of incompetent and corrupt elements. It is a huge issue.”

He said people were more concerned about rising food prices, water shortage, power cuts, hunger, disease and their deteriorating economic conditions. He said the government was trying to overcome those problems but that would take time.

“It can be your opinion, not mine,” he shot back when a questioner urged him to reinstate the deposed judges first and stop insisting too much on his policy of reconciliation.