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Sharif’s no to Musharraf

ISLAMABAD: The Nawaz Sharif-led Pakistan Muslim League (N) on Saturday said emissaries of President Pervez Musharraf had approached the party leadership for “negotiations” but said it rejected the overtures as it did not want to “cut deals with a dying dictator”.

The remarks came as reports of a meeting between Gen. Musharraf and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) leader Benazir Bhutto in Abu Dhabi on Friday continued to be denied by officials, while senior leaders of the PPP said they did not know and media reported that the talks had ended in a “deadlock”.

Ahsan Iqbal, information secretary of the PML (N), told The Hindu that the Government had asked the party leadership to join the negotiations with the intention of “some grand alliance”. “But the party leader, Mr. Nawaz Sharif, has refused because we have a principled stand that he has to resign, he must resign, and there should be a neutral caretaker government before the elections. We will not negotiate with him,” Mr. Iqbal said.

Presidential spokesman Major General Rashid Qureshi denied to journalists that a meeting took place between the President and Ms. Bhutto. Information Minister Mohammed Ali Durrani said he was ignorant of such a meeting, but said matters would become clear when Gen. Musharraf returned from Saudi Arabia, where he went onward from the UAE.

Senator Mushahid Hussain, secretary-general of the ruling PML, said if the meeting had taken place, it was a “positive step” that the Government was reaching out to the Opposition. “The country needs harmony, co-existence, tolerance and consensus. The problems of the country are such that no one person or party can solve them. There has to be co-operation between parties to bring about a national consensus,” Mr. Hussain told Dawn TV.

The News named Mr. Hussain as the go-between for Gen. Musharraf’s approaches to Mr. Sharif, but the exiled leader spurned the olive branch that the Pakistan leader sent to him through his former confidant. Several newspapers said the Musharraf-Benazir talks had “deadlocked” on the issue of Gen. Musharraf’s re-election from the sitting Parliament in uniform. But politicians here said the two would not have gone into a “high-cost meeting” for both just to explore the waters.

Local leaders of the PML (N) were scathing in their assessment of the reported meeting between President Musharraf and Ms. Bhutto. In the PML (N)’s view, free and fair elections are impossible as long as Gen. Musharraf remains President as any caretaker or interim government would come under his influence.

Mr. Iqbal said a Musharraf-Benazir deal “will backfire for both”. Ms. Bhutto would not be able to justify it to the PPP rank-and-file, nor Gen. Musharraf to the army, he said. “He is so weak now that it is political suicide for anyone to get in his boat,” the PML (N) leader said.

Mr. Sharif’s agenda was not restricted to the coming elections, Mr. Iqbal said. “This is not about him wanting to become the next Prime Minister. We have made these compromises with the military too many times. The present situation in the country provides the opportunity to change the civil-military equation, and that is what Mr. Sharif wants to,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Information Minister told journalists that the President would form an “interim government” towards free and fair elections.

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