Pervez Musharraf’s claim that slain former Pakistani premier Benazir Bhutto wanted him to continue as President is the “wishful thinking of a disgraced dictator”, presidential spokesman Farhatullah Babar said today.

Musharraf “must stand erect on his own feet and face the consequences of his misdeeds rather than seeking shelter behind the name and pictures” of Bhutto whom he “chased and hounded when in power”, Babar said in a statement.

The former military ruler’s claim in an interview to an Indian TV channel that Bhutto wanted him to continue as President is the “wishful thinking of a disgraced dictator who has been shunted out of the Presidency in full public view and who is now seeking a measure of public support to escape the fate that awaits all dictators”, Babar said.

In the interview, Musharraf claimed that if Bhutto was alive, he would still be the President because she had wanted him to continue in the position.

Babar, who served as spokesman for Bhutto for nearly two decades, said what she thought of the dictator is “graphically described in her two books ‘Daughter of the East´ and ‘Reconciliation´ and in innumerable interviews”.

He said: “Musharraf should read her books and the remarks she publicly made about him in the interviews.”