PPP wing applies to EC for registration

The Pakistan People's Party Parliamentarians, a group hastily crafted to circumvent possible disqualification of the Benazir Bhutto-led PPP, presented its registration papers to the election commission (EC) here yesterday for the general elections in October.

The group was launched on Monday on the advice of Benazir, PPP chairperson and former prime minister, who stands barred from political office or taking part in the elections under a law enforced by the military government.

Makhdoom Amin Fahim, a senior PPP leader from southern Sindh province, was elected to lead the party's sister political entity. Raja Pervez Ashraf, a junior PPP leader, was elected secretary general.

"We founded this PPPP to contest the elections as we never wanted to leave the field open for anybody else," Ashraf told reporters after submitting the papers along with Fahim at the election commission.

"We still derive our strength from our great leader Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto," he said.

Ashraf boasted that the PPP was the single largest party with support at the grassroots level. It had the strength to win the forthcoming vote and form the next civilian government, he said.

Parties began registering with the election commission on Monday after holding fresh internal polls, mandatory under new laws brought in by Pakistan's military ruler, President Pervez Musharraf.

The laws require parties to submit internal poll results, financial records and manifestoes to the commission for scrutiny by August 12.

The commission will decide which parties can be registered to contest the elections. The PPP re-elected Benazir as its president unopposed when it held intra-party elections late last month.

But prudence overcame defiance, leading to the formation of the PPPP as a separate group in a bid to fend off the threat of losing the chance to contest the coming polls.

Benazir, who has been living in self exile in London since April 1998, was hit by a law promulgated on August 2 that barred convicts and absconders from political party office and the electoral process.

She was convicted twice and sentenced to jail by accountability courts this year for failing to appear before it to answer charges in corruption cases pending against her.