Musharraf fails to answer "tricky questions" at Davos

Davos (Switzerland), Jan.25 : He may have thought of using his trip to various European capitals to win fresh support for what he was doing in Pakistan, but President Pervez Muhsarraf experienced a tough time on most of the questions put to him on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum here.

Most of the tricky issues remained by and large unanswered.

When a questioner asked him who will deliver justice to a complainant if elections turn out to be fraud because of his decision to suspend or remove judges, Musharraf first skipped the question, but later said it was his commitment that elections will be free, fair and transparent.

The president was questioned time and again about his actions like imposition of emergency to remove judges and complaints about "fraud elections", and he only countered it by saying "What will you do when authority of the executive is undermined".

Asked as to how he saw his working with the new prime minister after elections and about the anti-terror drive in tribal areas and elsewhere, the Dawn quoted him as saying that the majority party would form the government and if it turned out to be a hung parliament, then a coalition government would come into being and elect a prime minister.

"I am not a difficult person for anybody to work with," he said and added he would work comfortably with any prime minister and said he would play his role for the new coalition in case of a hung parliament.

Musharraf said the West should not see the developing countries "with idealistic and unrealistic" angles of human rights and democracy.

Responding to a related question, he said he was working on a multi-pronged policy to deal with terrorism. He said there was no place for Al Qaeda foreigners in Pakistan who would be confronted head on militarily while the Taliban was a local phenomenon who would be brought into mainstream through force and social uplift schemes.

ANI