President shouldn’t have power to dismiss National Assembly: Zardari

Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Co-Chairman Asif Ali Zardari says he believes that the president should not have the power to dissolve the National Assembly and that the head of state’s role should be “more ceremonial”.

“Parliament is sovereign, and one has to look at the future of Pakistan’s democracy as more important than individuals as such,” he said in an interview with a leading US magazine. The interview with NEWS WEEK’s Lally Weymouth took place before Zardari was formally nominated by his party to be its candidate for the post of President.

Replying to a question, the PPP leader also said that he was in favour of restoring ex-chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry who was deposed along with 60 other superior judges by former president Pervez Musharraf when he imposed a State of Emergency last November. “I personally am in favour of the chief justice, but there is a position in the party, which says that he has become too politicised in the last many months and he has been leading rallies,” Zardari said.

Elaborating his views on Presidential powers, he said: “We fought this war for democracy, and all the powers that Musharraf enjoyed were obviously non-democratic. We need to have a debate in the Parliament and see how strong we want the future president (to be) and how strong we want to make our prime minister. I think the president should not have the power to dissolve the assembly.”