Musharraf names party office-bearers
ISLAMABAD: Former president and chief of All Pakistan Muslim League (APML) Gen (retd) Pervez Musharraf has finally announced the names of his party's office-bearers for Pakistan.
Gen Musharraf, required by police in a couple of criminal cases, has declared that he will return to the country before the next general election. But his return seems to be linked to the performance of his party.Unlike the chiefs of other parties, Gen Musharraf has assigned responsibilities to every office-bearer, sources say.
The former military ruler has appointed Atiqua Odho, a well-known television personality, as a vice-president and will help manage the party's website, according to the sources.
Maj-Gen (retd) Rashid Qureshi, a former media manager of Gen Musharraf, and Naeem Tahir have been named as the party's other vice-presidents.
The sources say that there's no new name in the list of APML's office-bearers, as Gen Musharraf has had to rely on his hand-picked beneficiaries and loyalists who have been meeting him in London or Dubai.
Among them is Chaudhry Shahbaz Hussain --- a minister in the Q-League government --- who has been named as one of the three senior vice-presidents of the party.
He has been assigned the responsibility of looking after the party's political affairs in northern and central Punjab.
Another loyalist and former minister Dr Sher Afgan Niazi has been appointed as the second senior vice-president of the party and will look after the party's affairs in southern Punjab.
Dr Mohammad Amjad, formerly of the PML-Q, has been named as the third senior vice-president of APML and has been tasked with coordinating with its secretary-general the overall organisational and secretarial work.
Mohammad Ali Saif will remain the party's secretary-general and will supervise all organisational matters.
Chaudhry Fawad Hussain has been appointed as the general-secretary for Punjab.