Pakistan's two main opposition leaders have failed to overcome key differences preventing them forging a united front ahead of general elections in January, party officials said on Friday. Former premiers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif will now have to meet again next week in an attempt to hammer out an agreement, their parties said.
Bhutto and Sharif are trying to draw out a joint list of demands they want President Pervez Musharraf to meet and ensure the January 8 vote is not rigged, failing which they are threatening to boycott the election.
Any agreement is crucial because if they pull out of the election it would rob the vote of any credibility, undermining Musharraf's claims to be leading the emergency-ruled country back toward democracy. Bhutto and Sharif, on Monday set up an eight-member committee to draw out a list finalised on Thursday with a 15-point charter, but has had to refer to the two outstanding issues to the party leaders, committee member Raza Rabbani said.
"We have arrived at a consensus on 13 out of 15 points. There is a slight difference on the formulation of two points," Rabbani, a member of Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party informed AFP without giving details. A senior leader of Sharif's party, Raja Zafar-ul Haq, said the committee could not agree on the points of reinstatement of judges ousted by Musharraf under emergency rule, or a timeframe for the government to meet the demands.
"The differences were on the issue of judges and a cut-off date to the government for acceptance of the terms for holding a free and fair elections," Haq told AFP.
Two mainstream opposition leaders, Bhutto and Sharif will meet early next week to approve the demands and try to agree on a deadline, he said. "We are hopeful about a consensus on all issues," Haq added. Rabbani also stressed: "It is incorrect to say that the talks are deadlocked over the two points."
Sharif in particular has been calling for the reinstatement of ousted Chief Justice, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry and 37 other judges forced into retirement by the government after they refused to swear an oath of allegiance to Musharraf under emergency legislation. He told a private television that Bhutto's party wanted the judges issue be taken up after elections while "we want their reinstatement "before" the polls. Musharraf declared the state of emergency on November 3 and has pledged to lift it on December 16.
Meanwhile, Bhutto left for Dubai on early Friday was expected to return in three or four days, her spokesman Farhatullah Babar told AFP. Musharraf has been at loggerheads with the judiciary since he first tried to sack Chaudhry in March, a move that led to massive street protests and sent his popularity plummeting.
Critics say that Musharraf's main motivation for imposing the emergency was to purge the Supreme Court of hostile judges amid fears that they would overturn his victory in an October 6 presidential election.
The new court rubber-stamped his election win last month and Musharraf was subsequently sworn in for a second term as president, after quitting his dual role as army chief.
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