World | Pakistan
Bhutto puts poll boycott onus on other parties
Former prime minister Benazir Bhutto yesterday gave indication that her Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) could review its decision to participate in the January 8 parliamentary elections.
- By Shahid Hussain, Correspondent
- Published: 01:14 December 1, 2007
- Image Credit: Reuters
- Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto shows her party's manifesto for the coming elections during a news conference in Islamabad.
Islamabad: Former prime minister Benazir Bhutto yesterday gave indication that her Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) could review its decision to participate in the January 8 parliamentary elections if opposition groups were able to forge unity and thrash out a common agenda.
At a news conference to release her party's election manifesto, Bhutto said the opposition parties needed to sit together and discuss the implications of a poll boycott and formulate a "common agenda."
She expressed her readiness for talks with the All Parties Democratic Movement (APDM), a broad-based opposition alliance in which former prime minister Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) has a dominant role.
APDM decision
Bhutto's offer came after an APDM meeting held in Lahore on Thursday at Sharif's residence decided that the alliance would keep away from the polls and demanded a roll-back of all extra-constitutional measures that had accompanied the November 3 imposition of emergency, including the reinstatement of all judges who had been expelled from their posts, by December 15.
Though President Pervez Musharraf has already embraced a civilian makeover and announced he will lift the state of emergency and withdraw the provisional constitution order on December 6, the APDM is insisting on the restoration of the pre-emergency judiciary as an indispensable pre-requisite for fair polls and rule of law.
Accepting the APDM's offer of talks on the boycott issue, Bhutto pointed out out that her party was going into the elections "under protest" and had kept the boycott option open if a fool-proof mechanism for transparent polls was not assured.
"We are ready to change our mind if the opposition can find common ground, a common goal," she said.
She said that a boycott by the opposition would leave the field open to the other side, obviating its compulsion to rig the polls, but a strong opposition in the arena would expose the government. Bhutto denied a report by a private channel that she had held a meeting with Musharraf on Thursday. A PPP press release termed the report "fabricated".
Chaudhry praised
Bhutto praised the "courage" of deposed chief justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry and other sacked judges of the Supreme Court who had stood up to Musharraf.
On the reinstatement of the deposed judges, she warned that the issue would get due attention only with the restoration of genuine democracy and the emergence of a sovereign parliament and elected government through fair and free elections, and not otherwise.
The PPP manifesto, released to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the founding of the party, derived from the "5 Es" of employment, environment, energy, education and equality, she said.
Strongly condemning the police action unleashed on lawyers on Thursday as they protested against Musharraf's swearing-in as civilian head of state in Lahore, she demanded the release of all political detainees, including Supreme Court Bar Association chief Aitzaz Ahsan.
Your comments
I do not understand why Musharaff allowed the two corrupt former Prime Ministers to come to Karachi before they cleared themselves in court. What did they do for the benefit of the people when they were two term Prime Ministers? Nothing.
From Mahmood Ali
Thornhill
Canada
Posted: December 01, 2007, 19:15
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