Exiled Pakistan Opposition Pledge Election Return

Reuters

April 24, 2006

LONDON - The exiled leaders of Pakistan's main opposition parties pledged on Monday to return for 2007 general elections to try to oust the country's military ruler through the ballot box.

Former prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif have been in exile for several years and President Pervez Musharraf, who is widely expected to stay in office after the elections, has vowed to block their return to power.

"We want to go back. We are very keen to go back and it is our candid and considered view that the elections cannot be held in a fair and free manner unless and until the two main leaders go back to the country and participate in the election campaign," Sharif told Reuters television.

Bhutto and Sharif were bitter rivals in the 1990s but formed the multi-party Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy after Musharraf seized power in 1999 in a bloodless coup. The two leaders were in London to discuss their election strategy.

In a separate interview, Bhutto told Reuters television that while Musharraf had put many obstacles in their path to prevent their return, she believed there was a chance.

"I am planning to go back to Pakistan for the elections of 2007 and I will be discussing this with Mr Sharif," she said.

Sharif was ousted by Musharraf and sent to exile in Saudi Arabia, but he is now in London. Having lived in self-exile since 1999, Bhutto faces graft charges in Pakistan and abroad and faces arrest if she comes home.

U.S. SUPPORT

Musharraf abandoned the hardline Taliban in Afghanistan in late 2001 to throw his weight behind the U.S.-led war on terrorism, a move which brought him and his country credit abroad but angered Islamic fundamentalists at home.

President George W. Bush now calls Musharraf his "buddy" and Pakistan has captured and killed hundreds of al Qaeda members since ending its support for the Taliban.

Bhutto and Sharif both said they were committed to fighting terrorism and that Washington's backing of Musharraf was counter-productive to achieving long-term stability in Pakistan.

"The United States should have its friendship not with one individual in the country," said Sharif. "It should make the people of Pakistan its friends, otherwise this present (U.S.) policy ... is serving nothing else but alienating the 150 million people of the country," he said.

Sharif said the opposition coalition had three demands: that the 1973 constitution be restored, that the amendments to the constitution made by Musharraf not be recognized and that free and fair elections be held.

Bhutto said she believed their absence from the political stage was playing into the hands of parties exploiting religious and ethnic sentiments and that the only way to ensure a moderate Pakistan was to restore a pluralistic democracy.

Analysts say the marginalization of Bhutto and Sharif has allowed the Islamist opposition to exert greater influence in Pakistan, and an Islamist alliance forms the largest opposition group in parliament.

"The issue really is: where does Pakistan go in the future? Is democracy, which has been promoted by the United States and the international community as a way to undermine terrorism, going to be applied to Pakistan or not?" she said.

"We believe that if this (political) vacuum continues then a moderate Pakistan will be very difficult to achieve."