US wants Sharif to be Pak PM, Zardari as President: Mushahid

Rawalpindi, May 4 (ANI): The United States is trying to form a government in Pakistan with Asif Ali Zardari as President and PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif as Prime Minister, Secretary General Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) Mushahid Hussain Sayed has claimed.

Talking to Geo TV, Mushahid said he can tell what will not happen. "No one wants. No mid-term elections are coming. Second, the Army is not coming and the martial law is not being imposed," he said.

Third, he said it is clear that government affairs could not be run under the present status quo.

Mushahid said he felt there was an action replay of 2007, when efforts were made to bring Musharraf closer to Benazir, adding work on that strategy has begun. "Put Zardari in place of Musharraf and Sharif in place of Benazir," he said.

Answering a question as to whether this strategy would succeed, he said as Mark Lyall Grant (UK envoy) was an important part of that strategy, he was in Washington on April 27.

Grant had also met Holbrooke and Hillary Clinton and told them that Gordon Brown has again met Sharif in Islamabad and Shahbaz Sharif had a sitting with Foreign Secretary David Milliband, Mushahid said.

"Britain's role is very important. It's a three-phase strategy. The first phase has been completed. This phase was to weaken the Zardari government by clipping its wings. They had been trying hard to get complete control of the Supreme Court and the government and wanted complete sovereignty."

Mushahid said their first strategy has been successful. The second part of the strategy is to strike a coalition between Zardari and Sharif so as to form such a government that could easily be transferred. He said they were working on the second phase of the strategy.

When asked whether it was possible that the president's powers are cut and Sharif is made a powerful prime minister, or powers are distributed, Mushahid said Zardari and Nawaz were political survivors, who had suffered a lot during the last 8 to 10 years.

Under the law of necessity, he said, they have to make some adjustment with each other, adding so long Zardari remains in the chair he could agree to such an adjustment.

To another question about Zardari as president and Nawaz Sharif as prime minister in future, Mushahid said: "I don't say that he will be the prime minister in any case, but his first priority is to bring the PML-N to the coalition." (ANI)