Pak amendment will strip president's title from Zia-ul-Haq

Twenty-two years after his death in a mysterious plane crash, late Pakistan strongman Zia-ul-Haq faces his Presidency being blotted out from history books when a constitutional amendment package is passed by lawmakers this week.

Under the bill to be tabled in Parliament, Zia-ul-Haq will be stripped of his title of President as his election as president through a controversial referendum in December 1984 will be deleted from the constitution, The News daily reported today.
   
After the passage of the constitutional reforms package, Zia-ul-Haq will be known only as a General and not as the president, the report said.
   
Clause 7 of Article 41 of the constitution is expected to be deleted to strip the late dictator of his title of president.

After holding the referendum one year before the general election of 1985, Zia-ul-Haq had got himself declared as the president when article 41 was added to the constitution at his behest the same year.
   
However, the report noted that a "large number" of lawmakers in the lower and upper houses of the current parliament were part of the Majlis-e-Shoora of Zia-ul-Haq and had "greatly helped him" win the referendum.
   
"They would now vote against their own actions of the past to strip him of the title of the President of Pakistan," the report said.