http://www.dawn.com/2010/12/02/anp-chief-declined-to-become-president.html
Salute to ANP chief for being dignified politician keeping the old traditions of his grandfather and father being really a democrat and civilised person.
‘ANP chief declined to become president’
**PESHAWAR, Dec 1: The Awami National Partys chief Asfandyar Wali Khan was offered the post of president but he turned it down, Khyber Pakhtunkhwas Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain said here on Wednesday, confirming a disclosure made in a US diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks. **
“Asfandyar Wali Khan received the offer to become the president but he declined,” he said in reply to a question.
“Our party didn`t have the support required for the post and we could not accept the offer,” he said.
The cable released by WikiLeaks said the offer had been made by army chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani.
“The ANP believed that the post of the president should be held by the party having the required number of seats in parliament,” the minister said.
However, he said, it was a matter of immense pride that a Pakhtun leader had been offered the job.He (Asfandyar) consulted the party and it was decided to decline the offer because it would have been inappropriate to hold a post to which it was not entitled constitutionally.
Mr Hussain also said that Afghanistan was about to witness a massive change.
“The Afghan armed groups, including the Taliban, will part ways with Al Qaeda. The local militants will lay down arms after an internal agreement there,” he said.
Eventually, he said, a national government would be set up in Afghanistan with representation of all parties. JUI-F DENIAL:
However, the JUI-F refuted a startling revelation made in another cable that its chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman had sought US help to become the prime minister during a meeting with the US ambassador Anne Patterson.
The maulana is on a visit to Cambodia as head of a Kashmir Committee delegation.
The information secretary of his party termed the disclosure a blatant lie and part of the US plan to tarnish the image of political personalities.
“The JUI is an ideological party,” Maulana Mohammad Amjad Khan said on phone from Lahore. “We believe in parliamentary politics. We would never seek anybody`s help, let alone that of the Americans, to enter the corridors of power through the backdoor,” he said.
He said Maulana Fazl had neither held a secret meeting with the former American ambassador nor asked for her help to become the prime minister.
“We don`t do deals,” he said.