Islamabad: Pakistani political parties on July 13 attacked President Pervez Musharraf's plan to give the Army a domineering role in politics, which would leave the government that will be elected in October at the mercy of the military.

In a televised address on July 12 night Musharraf proposed a National Security Council (NSC) comprising civilian leaders and military top brass with powers to sack the National Assembly and Prime Minister.

The powerful 15-party Alliance for Restoration of Democracy (ARD) said the plan would, as he put it, turn future Parliaments into orphanages.

"It is a joke in the name of democracy," ARD chief Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan told AFP. "We completely reject this. This is mutilation of the 1973 Constitution which was passed unanimously by an elected Parliament."

The fundamentalist Jamaat-i-Islami dismissed as a blatant lie Musharraf's repeated assertion on July 12 that he was not a "power-hungry" man.

"Institutionalising a military-led National Security Council will be a fatal blow to democracy. It will reduce the future elected governments to a complete farce," Jammat spokesman Mansoor Jaffar told AFP.

The military ruler, who seized power in a bloodless coup in October 1999, repeatedly denied in his 70-minute speech that his proposals for amending the Constitution were aimed at making himself all-powerful.

Musharraf argued that an institutional check by way of the National Security Council would ensure that crises were prevented and the military did not have to intervene directly, as it had done in the past.

"I am even giving the power to dismiss the National Assembly, Cabinet and the Prime Minister to the National Security Council... I'm not leaving it to the personal whims and wishes of one person," Musharraf said.

He said the Council would "exercise checks on the government and there would be no intrusion on the working of the government".

However, it would be empowered to declare states of Emergency as well as sack the Prime Minister, Cabinet and Parliaments at national and provincial levels.