Benazir to file plea before tribunal today

Former premier Benazir Bhutto's lawyers will file an appeal today before a tribunal, set up by the election commission, challenging her disqualification from the October 10 elections, her party spokesman said.

Earlier, Bhutto's party planned to file an appeal yesterday, but the move has been delayed for a day because of technical reasons, Munawwar Suharwardi, a PPP spokesman in Karachi, told Gulf News.

The election commission rejected Bhutto's nomination papers on two seats from her hometown of Larkana, saying that convicted people are not allowed to run in the elections.

In Karachi, the election commission officials rejected her nomination on the reserved women seat on similar grounds. Bhutto has been given a three-year jail term by a court for abstaining from its proceedings in two separate corruption cases.

Suharwardi said that the lawyers would file appeals in election commission's Sukkur and Karachi offices, challenging the ineligibility of the PPP chairperson on what he called "such unlawful and flimsy grounds."

"We will bring to the election commission's notice that the decision of her disqualification was announced on the state-run radio even before the returning officer in Karachi gave his verdict," he said. "This shows that the decision was made somewhere else."

Also the lawyers would argue against her conviction for abstaining from court proceedings because she was represented by her lawyers, he said.

The returning officer's ruling that she should have herself appeared before the commission to file nomination papers is also "baseless" because there is a precedent that nomination papers can be filed even in the absence of a candidate, he added.

On Tuesday, President Gen. Pervez Musharraf reiterated his commitment to keep what he calls corrupt and dishonest politicians out of the future democratic setup.

But he denied the allegations by his opponents that the government was trying to influence the election commission to seek the ouster of Bhutto or any other politician.

The PPP accuses Musharraf of targeting Bhutto, the twice-elected premier, who has been living in self-exile since early 1999.

The government denies the charge and says that all steps are being taken under the law.

The PPP so far has failed to build pressure over the government to save the political career of Bhutto, who is struggling to stage a comeback in Pakistani politics.