Lahore: President Pervez Musharraf says he will quit his uniform as well as Presidency, the moment he feels his uniform is against the interest of the country and its people.

Addressing a luncheon reception hosted on June 8 by the Lahore Bar Association, he said he was not President by choice, but by compulsion. He said he knew the slots of President and the Army chief should not be with one person. "Let an appropriate time come, I will leave the COAS (chief of Army staff) office in the best interest of the country."

Musharraf said he wanted his country to be "progressive and dynamic", not a state ruled by Taleban- style laws. "Do we need a Talebanised Pakistan? Do we need the Taleban's Islam?" Musharraf asked. "We need a progressive and dynamic Pakistan."

He said the country was undergoing destabilisation, and his uniform was necessary for the stability and development of the country. "Whether anyone likes it or not I will stay in uniform till the strengthening of democratic institutions," he added.

In democracy, he said, Parliament is supreme, but there were precedents that the Supreme Court had given verdict on Constitutional issues. All the amendments to the Constitution had been made on the orders of the Supreme Court.

He said it was after hectic meetings with politicians, religious leaders and Constitutional experts that only 29 of the 60 amendments had been made. He said the apex court had authorised him to amend the Constitution, and it was neither strange nor philosophical.

He said the Constitution and the law of the land were supreme, and the laws were made for the welfare of the people. All the amendments had been made for political restructuring and their opponents were criticising the same at the behest of their leaders sitting abroad.

He said the Opposition had no other issue to raise and hence exerting its full energies to make LFO (Legal Framework Order) controversial. The three major parts of the LFO had been formed after logical thinking. The first part contained election related reforms and there was no dispute in it. Under the reforms, he said, local bodies system was introduced, voters' age was reduced, elections were held and democratic institutions formed.

Musharraf said the third part was the contentious part about the National Security Council, 58 (2) b and his uniform. About 58 (2) b, the President said the people knew that in the past there was loot and plunder in the system. The people who led the country to such an extent, he said, should be checked as it was not a Western democracy, but purely Pakistani democracy, where there was a complete check on the elected leaders.

He said if Prime Minister was wrong, the President could also make wrong decisions, and as such there should be check on the President. He said Pakistan's history of democracy showed one-to-one fight between the President and the Prime Minister, and the President directing the PM, who was not listening. And in the tussle between the two powerful personalities, Musharraf said, the people started running towards the General Headquarters and the Army chief, against his will, calling for his intervention.

ANI