HongKong, September 15: Former Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf said Wednesday he would launch a new party on Oct. 1, as the retired general plots a return to the frontlines of the country’s turbulent politics.
Musharraf also accused Afghan President Hamid Karzai of lacking “legitimacy” but urged the West to stay the course against the Taliban and not to abandon the restive region.
“I’m going to declare a party on Oct. 1… We have to bring about a new political culture in Pakistan,” he told reporters in Hong Kong after addressing an annual investors’ forum organized by the CLSA brokerage.
The 67-year-old Musharraf, who lives in self-imposed exile in London, shrugged off the threat of possible legal action arising from his years of military rule of Pakistan.
“There are elements opposed to me, political elements, and they are the ones who engineer these cases. One has to face that. I’m very confident nothing can happen (on his eventual return home),” he said.
-Agencies