Source: USA Today

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistan’s largest opposition coalition planned to decide Sunday whether to boycott upcoming parliamentary elections if the government refuses to meet its key demand, the restoration of an independent judiciary, party officials said.

The All Parties Democratic Movement (APDM) will make a final decision whether to boycott the Jan. 8 polls at a meeting in the eastern city of Lahore, said Iqbal Zafar Jhagra, secretary-general of Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-N party.

The APDM consists of 33 parties and political groups. It is led by Sharif, a former prime minister whose government was overthrown in 1999 by President Pervez Musharraf, the army chief at the time.

A boycott by the grouping would undermine Musharraf’s efforts to legitimize the new presidential term he was elected to in October by a parliament stacked with his supporters.

Under pressure from the United States, his chief foreign backer, Musharraf stepped down as army chief last month and has relaxed a crackdown on opponents and the media. U.S. Ambassador Anne Patterson has repeatedly urged all opposition parties to take part in the elections

Ongoing talks on a list of preconditions for opposition participation between Nawaz’ party and the Pakistan People’s Party of Benazir Bhutto, another former prime minister, are deadlocked over the key demand that Musharraf reinstate Supreme Court judges he sacked and detained after declaring a state of emergency on Nov. 3.

His hand-picked replacements on the court immediately dismissed all complaints against Musharraf’s re-election, allowing him to take the oath of office for another five-year term.

Sharif’s party favors a boycott unless the judges are reinstated, but Bhutto says the new parliament selected in the elections should decide on the matter.

“In view of Pakistan People’s Party’s non-agreement on the issue of the restoration of judges, APDM will in today’s meeting decide the best strategy to achieve the goal,” Jhagra said.

He said a decision on whether to boycott the elections could go either way, because many coalition members favored maintaining a united opposition front with Bhutto’s party.

The political maneuvering comes a day after Pakistan’s army announced it had driven Islamic militants from all the towns in a scenic northern valley and killed 290 followers of a pro-Taliban cleric who has called for a holy war against the government.

The militants, followers of firebrand preacher Maulana Fazlullah, had taken control of at least eight towns in the Swat valley since July, scattering outgunned police and erecting “Taliban station” signboards outside former police stations.

Musharraf had cited the stepped-up militancy in northern regions like Swat in imposing the state of emergency — a move critics said was actually designed to silence opposition forces weary of his eight-year military dictatorship.

Early Sunday, suspected militants fired four rockets at an air force base near the northern city of Peshawar, said Tanvirul Haq, the city police chief.

“Three of the rockets landed in the base area and one near the residential side, but none hit any building,” he said. “One person was grazed by a piece of flying metal and sustained minor injuries.”

 E-mail this article to a friend

Tags: APDM, Benazir, Nawaz, opposition, parlimentry