ISLAMABAD — Pakistan’s two main opposition parties yesterday agreed to form a coalition government after winning elections, dealing a major blow to President Pervez Musharraf’s hopes of political survival. Asif Ali Zardari, the widower of assassinated opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, and former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif announced that they would “strengthen Pakistan together” after they ousted Musharraf’s allies in Monday’s parliamentary polls.
“We have agreed on a common agenda. We will work together to form the government in the center and in the provinces,” Sharif told a joint news conference after talks with Benazir’s husband Asif Ali Zardari. “The sooner he (Musharraf) accepts the verdict, the better it is for him,” Sharif told reporters, sitting side by side with Zardari. The move brings them closer to the two-thirds majority they would need to seek Musharraf’s impeachment.
“In principle, we have agreed to stay together. We intend to strengthen Pakistan together,” said Zardari, whose Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) is set to be the biggest party in the new Parliament, followed by Sharif’s.
Sharif said the two parties had overcome their differences over his demands for the immediate restoration of the country’s chief justice, whom Musharraf sacked in November, saying they would work on the issue in parliament.
The announcement of the coalition comes despite what party officials said were efforts by Musharraf to try to divide Zardari and Sharif and persuade Zardari to form a coalition with his own parties.
Zardari said the coalition would not involve any parties from the alliance that backed former general Musharraf during the last Parliament from 2002 until November 2007. “We are not looking at pro-Musharraf (parties),” he said.
Sharif Supports Chaudhry
Sharif earlier addressed hundreds of protesting lawyers outside deposed Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry’s Islamabad home, where the judge remains under house arrest. “It is your duty to adhere to the law and not to abide by the orders of Pervez Musharraf,” he told the demonstrators as hundreds of paramilitary troops and police stood guard.
Police fired tear gas at lawyers calling for the restoration of Chaudhry in the southern city of Karachi.
Thousands more demonstrated elsewhere. Chaudhry, who was sacked by Musharraf under emergency rule in November, said in a telephone address to the lawyers in Karachi that there was no constitutional hurdle to judges getting their jobs back.
