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'Army not to stay in power for long'

ISLAMABAD: Head of National Reconstruction Bureau (NRB) Lt. General Tanveer Hussain Naqvi (Retd) has said that the government will hold elections of local bodies this year as first phase of the transfer of power.

In an interview with BBC he said, the present government does not want to follow the pattern adopted by the previous military government.

"One of these patterns worked for ten years while the other for eleven years. We do not intend to remain in power for ten years", he added.

Gen. Tanveer said that he understands the point of view of the people who say that they have already experienced such practices, adding "In this regard, I just want to say that we intend to go back to our barracks."

He said, people are demanding from the present set up not to leave the things like the past. They want that all the things should be set right.

"For how many times we will repeat this practice? We have repeated this practice eight to ten times".

The fact is that whenever a government was replaced by the other the same problem erupted again. No political government has set up any local bodies institution. Whenever a military government sets up the local bodies institution, they did not work in a real sense. APP