November 12, 2002	Tuesday	Ramazan 6, 1423

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LAHORE, Nov 11: Pakistan Peoples Party’s support for Maulana Fazlur Rahman is next to impossible as it is reluctant even to recognize the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) in the proposed deal it has offered to alliance’s leadership as a pre-condition for forming government.

The party has avoided to mention MMA’s name in the 15-point charter of demands, alliance officials said. It has instead used the word —- all parties conference (APC) —- to satisfy its “benefactors in the west” that it is not going to join hands with religious elements.

However, it is trying to trap religious parties through Alliance for Restoration of Democracy (ARD) president Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan to grind its own axe by intimidating Gen Pervez Musharraf as well as western powers with the rise of religious fanatics.

The United States is especially worried over the future of its ongoing operation against so-called Al-Qaeda members allegedly taking shelter in the areas bordering Afghanistan —- the NWFP and Balochistan. The anti-America elements in the MMA are all set to form their government in the NWFP, while they can also come into power in Balochistan by offering support to the PML-Q in the centre.

Various PPP leaders are issuing statements giving the impression that their party will support MMA nominee for prime minister Maulana Fazlur Rahman. But the moves the party has so far made reveal that it is not serious about cooperating with the religious parties.

Political analysts say these statements are aimed at dissociating the alliance from the PML-Q, in other words increasing pressure on Gen Musharraf by frustrating efforts of the king’s party to form government, to make the General concede to PPP’s demands of exonerating Benazir Bhutto from corruption cases registered back in the Nawaz government and releasing her husband Asif Ali Zardari besides other jailed party leaders.

Had the party been serious about supporting Maulana Fazl, Ms Bhutto would not have refused to accept the mandate of the MMA by saying that Gen Musharraf had a role in the victory of the religious parties to blackmail the west.

She travelled all the way from London to Washington and met with state department officials to convince them in this regard.

Sources in the MMA claim that Ms Bhutto had to some extent succeeded in pressuring Gen Musharraf as secret agencies had started making contacts with alliance leaders as well as the PPP when the news that the latter had proposed some written deal to the MMA for forming government.

But they relaxed after learning that the PPP move was a bluff as it did not make further contacts to discuss the charter of demands in the next 24 hours.

“The US officials have held out an assurance to the army regime that Ms Bhutto will not go against it. Had it not been so, the general would not have seemed so relaxed,” the sources asserted.

The PPP leaders had said that they would support the APC candidate as prime minister. When they were asked to make a formal announcement in this regard, they avoided by saying that the step would be taken within a couple of days. But the day never came, the sources concluded.