Bhutto, Sharif pitching might against Prez
Anticipating elections next year, the exiled opposition leaders plan to return home to Pakistan to take on Musharraf.
Anticipating elections next year, exiled opposition leaders Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif are reportedly planning to return home to Pakistan to take on President Pervez Musharraf.
A meeting is being planned - the venue is yet to be decided - between once arch rivals Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, both of whom have had two terms each as prime minister and who are making a common cause against Musharraf.
Confabulations are on in Dubai and London. A Charter of Democracy is on the anvil.
It has been worked out by Bhutto and Shahbaz Sharif, Nawaz Sharif's younger brother and a former Punjab chief minister. Mass resignations by the legislators of their parties are being planned.
The Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) of Nawaz Sharif is preparing to push for the return of the two Sharif brothers, whose family has been exiled in Saudi Arabia since Musharraf seized power in 1999.
His party's Central Working Committee (CWC) will meet in London Saturday, two days after Musharraf told a Pakistan Day rally in Lahore that the people of Pakistan should not trust the ousted leaders and ensure that they never ruled again.
PML-N sources told the Daily Times that the reconstituted CWC was meeting after six years under the chairmanship of Nawaz Sharif. It would approve the draft of the Charter of Democracy.
The charter aims at cooperation between the PML-N and Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party (PPP) against "undemocratic forces" and at working amicably for sustainable democratic governments.
The meeting would also plan for the next general elections and discuss the current political situation in Pakistan and other national issues.
It would also discuss the possibility of PML-N members resigning from the Senate and national and provincial assemblies, party sources said.
PML-N chairman Raja Zafarul Haq and other leaders like Iqbal Zafar Jhagra, Sardar Zulfiqar Ali Khan Khosa, Rana Tanveer, Khawaja Muhammad Asif, Inamullah Khan Niazi, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, Raja Ashfaq Sarwar, Rana Sanaullah Khan, Syed Zafar Ali Shah, Tehmina Daultana and Muhammad Pervaiz Malik will attend the meeting.