Four dissident leaders have been expelled from the Pakistan Muslim League (PML) of jailed former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, the party's secretary general Siranjam Khan said Friday.
"We have thrown them out in the interest of the country and the party," Khan told a news conference here, four days after a split surfaced in the former ruling party.
Those expelled are Mohammad Ejazul Haq, PML vice-president, Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, former interior minister, Mian Mohammad Azhar, ex-governor of Punjab province, and Fakir Bukhari, PML's labor wing leader.
"They have no role now in the PML," the secretary general said.
The four were earlier suspended from the party by a pro-Sharif Central Working Committee which accused the dissidents of forcibly taking over the PML headquarters in Islamabad on Monday and indulging in hooliganism.
The dissidents had rejected the suspension as illegal, but had yet to respond to the expulsion.
The PML split came after Sharif gave the green light to his allies to join a multi-party Grand Democratic Alliance (GDA) to wage a united struggle for the restoration of democracy.
The GDA includes former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party, with which the PML had been locked in bitter rivalry in the past.
The dissident group in the PML opposes any cooperation with Bhutto's party because of the past confrontation. It is demanding that the PML should dump jailed Sharif and elect a new party president.
Sharif's wife, Kulsoom, said Friday the dissidents were in league with the military government.
"They are siding with the military rulers," Kulsoom told reporters at Multan in Punjab province.
Sharif was ousted in a military coup on October 12, 1999 after he sacked then army chief General Pervez Musharraf.
He was convicted in April for trying to stop a plane carrying Musharraf and other passengers from Colombo from landing in Pakistan on the day of the coup. The plane landed after the army took over the Karachi airport and within hours Musharraf seized power.
The military government has scheduled phased district level elections over the next six months under a devolution plan and promised that national elections will follow to return the country to civilian rule -- PESHAWAR (AFP)
© 2000 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
