PAKISTAN:The party of former Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif will take part in a January general election after failing to arrange a boycott pact with his rival, Benazir Bhutto, a spokesman said yesterday.
Mr Sharif had hoped fellow opposition leader Ms Bhutto would join an alliance of parties seeking to isolate president Pervez Musharraf in protest at his declaration of emergency rule, but Mr Sharif now feels he has no choice but to participate.
"There was no consensus among the opposition parties about a boycott of the election, so we have decided to take part in the election," Ahsan Iqbal, spokesman for Mr Sharif's faction of the Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N), said after a meeting of a cluster of opposition parties.
Mr Iqbal said Mr Sharif wanted the vote to be a referendum on reinstating judges that Mr Musharraf deposed on November 3rd in order to fend off challenges to his re-election while he was still army chief. "After failing to get [ Ms Bhutto's] Pakistan People's Party on board, he does not want the field to remain open for all Musharraf's loyalists and he wants to turn the election into a referendum," Mr Iqbal said.
Ms Bhutto has filed her nomination papers for the election and argues a boycott would leave the field open for a walkover by Mr Musharraf's allies. She says she reserves the right to protest after the vote if she deems it was rigged.
"If People's Party and other parties are participating in these elections, then it will be an exercise in futility if we are not part of the elections," said Javed Hashmi, a top Sharif party official tipped as a possible candidate for prime minister.
"We tried our level best, we went to Benazir Bhutto, we requested her . . . [ to] become part of this boycott. But then she decided to participate."