ISLAMABAD, 13 August 2007 — Pakistan’s main opposition leaders have roundly rejected President Pervez Musharraf’s call not to return home until after the forthcoming general elections, party officials said yesterday.
Musharraf said on Saturday that former prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, who pose the biggest threat to his continued rule, should stay away to avert possible political turmoil in the country.
Benazir’s Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) said any elections held in her absence could not be free and fair.
“Benazir Bhutto will come before elections. We have rejected Musharraf’s call because elections cannot be free and fair in her absence,” her spokesman Farhatullah Babar told AFP.
He said he expected Benazir to return sometime between September and December. General elections are due late this year or early 2008.
Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League also rejected the call, insisting that “politicians do not create problems, they resolve the problems.”
“Gen. Musharraf is responsible for all the problems Pakistan is facing today and he should quit,” said party spokesman Siddiqul Farooq, adding that Sharif may return in October.
The beleaguered president is facing a wave of violence across the country amid US accusations that Pakistan’s border areas have become a safe haven for Al-Qaeda and the Taleban.
Musharraf told newspaper editors Saturday that the return of the opposition leaders “would not be proper” if it were to lead to disturbances, adding that “stability should reign” until the vote.
Musharraf also said that no extreme steps, including the imposition of a state of emergency, which he reportedly considered last week, would be taken by the government, Dawn newspaper reported.
“Everything will be done in accordance with the law and the constitution,” the paper quoted him as saying.
Musharraf’s call comes against a backdrop of secret negotiations with two-time prime minister Benazir, with the aim of reaching a power-sharing agreement.
The president is trying to win the support of her PPP in order to get through his worst political crisis since he seized power in a coup in 1999.
Benazir wants the military ruler to lift a ban on her returning to Pakistan and a restriction on her serving a third term as prime minister, as well as to drop corruption charges against her.
Sharif has meanwhile mounted a Supreme Court challenge to Musharraf’s December 2000 order banishing him to Saudi Arabia after overthrowing him in a coup.
Musharraf has been quoted as saying that documents showing Sharif had signed a 10-year exile agreement would be produced in court at the appropriate time.
Analysts say Sharif’s return to Pakistan, if his appeal succeeds, could upset Musharraf’s political allies in the dominant province of Punjab.
The last Supreme Court challenge to the president’s rule ended in defeat for Musharraf, when the court reinstated the country’s chief justice after the president suspended him.
“We are confident that the Supreme Court would come out with a categorical decision on the Sharif family’s right to return home, in accordance with the constitution,” party spokesman Farooq told AFP yesterday.
“Both Sharif and Benazir should play their due role in Pakistan politics.”
Musharraf on Thursday decided not to declare a state of emergency against the advice of political aides eager to shore up their own power in the face of increased public dissatisfaction with military rule.
