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Political fog over Pakistan persists

ISLAMABAD: The dense political fog over Pakistan refused to lift despite a meeting between the two main leaders, Asif Ali Zardari and Nawaz Sharif, in Lahore on Wednesday, at which both sides reiterated their divergent positions on various issues, but at the same time underlined the need to keep the alliance intact.

Mr. Zardari’s Pakistan People’s Party and the Pakistan Muslim League (N) are seen as further apart after a lawyers’ “long march” to demand the restoration of the judges sacked by President Pervez Musharrf in his November 2007 emergency.

The PML(N), which quit the Cabinet in May over the government’s failure to restore the judges, participated in the march. Mr. Sharif’s speech at its culmination in the capital last Friday, declaring that a safe exit for General (retired) Pervez Musharraf was ruled out and suggesting instead that he must be hanged, appeared to be setting the stage for a confrontation with the PPP. Mr. Zardari, who is seen as supporting General Musharraf, has since tried to retrieve some political ground by declaring the PPP does not consider General Musharraf as a constitutional holder of that office. But he also said the coalition does not have the necessary numbers for the President’s impeachment.

While the PML(N) and the lawyers want the judges restored through a parliamentary resolution, the PPP wants to restore the judges through a proposed constitutional package, a position that is seen as having strengthened after the lawyers’ “long march” ended without a road-map of further protest. Spokesmen of both parties said “several issues” facing the coalition came up for discussion.

Mr. Zardari, who has been camping in Lahore since Monday, went to Mr. Sharif’s Raiwind home for the meeting.

The two leaders will meet on Friday. A PML (N) spokesman said the two discussed the “same three issues” that have been dogging the coalition since its inception: the restoration of judges; restoration of the Constitution; and General Musharraf’s impeachment.

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