Nawaz Sharif urged fellow opposition leader Bhutto to join him in boycotting Pakistan's upcoming elections, and said he had spurned a meeting with Musharraf.
ISLAMABAD: Exiled former premier Nawaz Sharif urged fellow opposition leader Benazir Bhutto to join him in boycotting Pakistan's upcoming elections, as he said he had spurned a meeting with President Pervez Musharraf.
The former premier's comments in a telephone interview came amid fevered political manoeuvring in nuclear-armed Pakistan, as Musharraf jousts with his foes over his imposition of a state of emergency. Musharraf was flying Tuesday to Saudi Arabia, Sharif's home in exile, fuelling reports that he would reach out to the former premier in a bid to split a possible Bhutto-Sharif alliance.
Sharif, however, ruled out any meeting with the man who ousted him eight years ago, sayin, "I am not prepared to meet that man when he has arrested the judiciary, gagged the media and suspended the constitution."
"I think the nation needs to prepare for a decisive battle against dictatorship," Sharif said from his home in Jeddah late Monday. Sharif said Musharraf tried to contact him three times in the past two months asking for a meeting. "I regretted it, I said no, it will not serve any purpose," he said.
The industrialist-turned-politician was kicked out of Pakistan within hours when he tried to return from exile in September. Instead, Sharif said talks to form an opposition front with Bhutto had progressed further -- so long as they can agree on an agenda to adopt against military ruler Musharraf. "I welcome the proposal by Benazir Bhutto for holding an all-parties conference," he said, referring to a meeting called by Bhutto for the middle of this week.
"I discussed the agenda by telephone with her and today (Monday) we discussed it in the APDM meeting," he said. The APDM, or All Parties Democracy Movement, is an opposition coalition that does not include Bhutto's party.
Sharif, who leads his faction of the conservative Pakistan Muslim League from exile, shared alternating periods in power between 1988 and 1999 with Bhutto, the chief of the moderate Pakistan People's Party (PPP).
"We have come out with a clear agenda which has been conveyed to the PPP, this is the agenda that we all need to follow," Sharif said.
"Musharraf should lift the emergency, free the judiciary and the media, install a government of national consensus and reconstitute the election commission." Sharif said that the agenda would also include a boycott of general elections that Musharraf has recommended should be held on January 8. The official date is set to be announced later Tuesday.
"When everyone is in jail, the election commission is subservient to him (Musharraf), the judiciary is subservient to him, under these circumstances how can one participate in elections?" Sharif said. "It is not possible." Bhutto however has refused to say whether her party will boycott the vote.
Last week she helped to dispel suspicions that she was still in power-sharing negotiations with Musharraf when she called on him to quit as president. On Monday however she was less vocal, saying only that she had no immediate plans for talks with him -- a stance that analysts say reflects divisions in her own party about how to act next.
Sharif however said he would up the pressure on Musharraf by making another attempt to return home. "I am hoping that I will be coming back very soon. Very soon I will be able to give you a date for my return," he said.
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
)
)
)
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}