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Musharraf assures "free, fair elections" in 2007
KARACHI: President General Pervez Musharraf on Wednesday said that 2007 would be the year of elections in the country, urging the people, particularly women to get ready for the elections and reject those elements who were opposing the women protection bill.
Addressing a gathering of PML (Q) women wing at the chief minister house on Wednesday evening, he said, "2007 will the year of next general elections, which will be free and fair."
He rejected criticism of the women’s protection bill as "un-Islamic" and rejected the notion of the Hudood Ordinances as divine law.
"The Hudood Allah cannot be changed as they are divine, but the Hudood Ordinance is man-made and it can be changed," Musharraf said.
He said the passage of women protection bill was not only the victory of women, but it was the victory of all the moderate forces in the country", He said those opposing the bill were simply "hypocrites".
He urged the women to vote for moderates in next elections as " if they win that means I win".
Describing the bill as 'historical', he said violence against women, the weakest and the underprivileged, must stop and they (women) should stand up against any form of violence being perpetrated against them.
The president said the Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) had declared the bill to be in consonance with Islamic laws, and this should be enough to satisfy critics of the bill as they keep calling it "un-Islamic".
He said the government was going to carry out a series of legislation to eliminate social injustices against women, including manipulation of the law of inheritance, trafficking of women, forced marriages, marriage with Holy Quran, practice of Vani and the divorce issue.
The president called upon women to reject the " extremists" who, he said, wanted to keep them deprived and underprivileged. "You will see that these extremists will be rejected by the people of Pakistan in next elections," he observed.
He said the government had already given women 33 per cent representation in elected bodies. "However, more steps needed to be taken," he added. Though job quotas for women had been increased and they had started entering new fields such as the armed forces, "their capacity-building is very important to get maximum benefit from their talent".
Musharraf said that Pakistan was and would remain an Islamic country, and that no law would be enacted which was against the Quran and Sunnat and Islamic injunctions. The women’s protection law passed by parliament was in accordance with the Holy Quran and Sunnat, he said.
Chief minister Dr Arbab Ghulam Rahim also addressed the meeting.
Courtesy Geo