ISLAMABAD, 8 December 2007 — Pakistan’s opposition parties remained deadlocked yesterday after three days of talks to draft conditions they want the government to meet for their participation in upcoming elections.
Representatives of the parties of former prime ministers Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto said they would continue talks on two remaining sticking points, after announcing Thursday they had reached agreement on 15 issues in a charter of electoral demands.
They would not specify what the demands for their participation in parliamentary elections set for Jan. 8 were until they are endorsed by their leaders.
“We still have to settle a couple of issues, and I am optimistic that this will be done soon,” said Ahsan Iqbal, a spokesman for Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-N.
Media reports yesterday said that differences remained on the two key issues: The restoration of an independent judiciary and a deadline to be set for government compliance.
Both Benazir and Sharif claim that President Pervez Musharraf’s government will try to rig the vote scheduled for Jan. 8. But they have disagreed what conditions should be put in place to prevent cheating. Sharif has insisted that Supreme Court judges sacked by Musharraf when he proclaimed a state of emergency a month ago be reinstated before the vote. Benazir has indicated she would prefer to reinstate them after the elections.
“We both are concerned that the elections seem to be unfair and we like to set some benchmarks to demonstrate what is fairness,” Benazir told reporters at airport as she was leaving for a brief visit to Dubai yesterday. She left for Dubai to see her children.
Benazir had planned to leave late Thursday, but the trip was delayed in a mix-up over her passport, spokesman Farhatullah Babar told AFP. Babar said she had to return from the airport because she was carrying her old passport which had expired.
“She left this morning,” he said, adding that she would stay in Dubai for three or four days.
Benazir’s family still lives abroad, including in Dubai, where they fled before Musharraf’s coup in 1999 that ousted then-Prime Minister Sharif.
Benazir has said her Pakistan People’s Party intends to contest the parliamentary ballot, although most other opposition politicians want her to join them in boycotting the vote unless Musharraf’s government fulfills their demands.
A court in Benazir’s hometown of Larkana accepted a petition challenging her candidacy for next month’s election. The petitioner, a member of the pro-Musharraf ruling party, asked the court to disqualify her on the grounds that she was convicted of corruption charges in 2000.
The electoral commissions have already rejected the candidacies of Sharif and his brother, Shabhaz, for supposed involvement in criminal acts in the late 1990s. Both have the right to appeal the decision.
Meanwhile, Wajihuddin Ahmad — a retired judge who lost the presidential vote to Musharraf in October — was detained after he addressed an anti-Musharraf rally in the eastern city of Gujrat, his lawyer, Haider Mahmood, said. Angered by the arrest, dozens of lawyers protested and clashed with police, Mahmood said. Activists of Islami Jamiat-e-Talba also staged a protest rally in Karachi yesterday against the sacking of judges.
Deposed Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, who has been under house arrest since the emergency declaration got a rare visit when Saudi Ambassador Ali Awadh Asseri invited him to make the Haj pilgrimage. Chaudhry declined, an aide said.
Emergency to Be Lifted on Dec. 15
President Musharraf will lift the state of emergency on Dec. 15, a day earlier than previously planned, the attorney general told AFP yesterday.
“The emergency will be lifted on Dec. 15,” Attorney General Malik Muhammad Qayyum told AFP.
