Acting President Mohammedmian Soomro on Tuesday signed the bill that allows President Pervez Musharraf to also retain the office of the Chief of Army Staff (COAS). The bill would come into force on December 31. Information and Broadcasting Minister Sheikh Rashid confirmed to reporters that the bill had been signed.
Meanwhile, talking to APP the information minister said, under the Constitution, the bill had to be signed by the president after it was passed by the National Assembly and the Senate within 30 days.
"After the signing of the bill, the process of president holding two offices has been completed," he said. The Senate had adopted the bill on November 1.
To a question, Rashid rejected the argument that the acting president was not authorised to sign the bill. "Under the law, the acting president can take all such decisions which the president is authorised to make," he added.
The minister said that the acting president had already been taking all such decisions and signing the bills.
"Therefore, the signing of bill by the acting president is legally and constitutionally right," he said.
After signing of the bill, Rashid said, there is no doubt that Pervez Musharraf would keep both the offices of the President and the Chief of Army Staff.
"President Musharraf will now keep both the offices," Information Minister Sheikh Rashid told AFP by telephone from London, where Musharraf is due to meet Prime Minister Tony Blair early next week.
The new law puts no time limit on how long Musharraf can hold both positions although his term as president is meant to end in 2007.
Tuesday was the deadline for presidential approval of the bill, falling just within the 30-day mark since the senate gave its backing.
The bill was endorsed earlier this month by the government-dominated Senate amid protests by the opposition, which has launched a nation-wide campaign to force him to quit as army chief.
In December 2003 General Musharraf pledged on national television that he would give up his military title. But he told AFP nearly a fortnight ago that he had "doubts" he would be able to do so.
The Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal and other opposition parties, including the Pakistan People's Party, have joined forces to launch a nation-wide agitation campaign against Musharraf.
"Musharraf is legally bound to relinquish the office of army chief by the end of December," MMA's deputy secretary general Hafiz Hussain Ahmed told AFP.
Rejecting the new law as illegal and unconstitutional, he said, "its ineffectiveness is confirmed by the fact that Musharraf himself did not endorse the bill, which had been lying there for almost one month."
"It's not the president who will remain the army chief but it is the army chief who will hold the office of president," he added.
The MMA at a rally in Karachi on Sunday gave Musharraf a December 19 deadline to become a civilian president or face a nation-wide movement.
"We are committed to this and we will decide the future course of action after the expiry of this deadline," Ahmed said.
Pakistan People's Party spokesman Farhatullah Babar also denounced the new law as undemocratic.
"We condemn it and we denounce it. This is illegal, undemocratic," Babar told AFP.
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