LAHORE, Nov 14: Top ARD leaders will discuss a proposal to hold an all-party conference to forge unity among all anti-government forces at a meeting to be held here on Saturday.
Chairman Makhdoom Amin Fahim will preside over the meeting where secretary-general Iqbal Zafar Jhagra will suggest that the ARD should host the APC to bring all opposition parties on one platform.
Mr Jhagra told Dawn on Friday that former prime minister Nawaz Sharif had directed his party, the PML-N, to join hands with other opposition parties to launch a joint movement against the government.
He said since the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal felt disenchanted after year-long talks with the government on the LFO, chances of launching a joint struggle were fairly bright.
The MMA has been trying to drive a wedge between President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Jamali by offering the latter its support to implement the constitutional package already hammered out by the experts from two sides. However, the premier is not ready to walk into the trap. Mr Jamali has the best possible relations with the president, because of which the MMA is left with no option but to think of joining hands with opposition forces.
Mr Jhagra said the ARD would never change its stand on the LFO or the status of Gen Musharraf and would continue its struggle against both.
The arrest of ARD president Javed Hashmi, according to Mr Jhagra, would also come under discussion at the meeting and the participants would seek his immediate release. He said though protest rallies were already being held at various places for the purpose, their frequency and intensity would be increased after Eid.
Besides, ARD’s deputy information secretary Munir Ahmed Khan released a “fact sheet”, a compilation of what he called failures of the Jamali government during its first year in office.
The fact sheet, reportedly approved by Benazir Bhutto, said the present system was continuation of the three-year rule of Gen Musharraf and the setup tailored as a cloak to hide dictatorship had been rejected by other countries.
Mr Munir Khan said Pakistan’s membership of the Commonwealth was not being restored because the club members had refused to recognize the existing system as fully democratic.
