ISLAMABAD, Nov 13: The Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy (ARD) is likely to take part in the first anti- government public meeting of the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) in Karachi on November 28, sources told Dawn here on Saturday.
The sources said senior leaders of the Alliance were of the view that the time had come that all opposition groups should forget the minor political disputes and unite on one platform to remove the "illegal and unconstitutional" government of Gen Pervez Musharraf.
It may be mentioned that both the ARD and the MMA had already announced to launch a protest movement against the Musharraf government after the passage of the uniform bill from parliament. The MMA had even announced the schedule of public meetings, starting from Karachi on November 28. On the other hand, the ARD has not yet decided about the date for launching of its own agitation movement.
The recent statements of the ARD and MMA leaders showed that the two alliances were ready to cooperate with each other in the protest movement. However, the nature of cooperation is yet to be decided.
When contacted, PPP secretary-general Raja Pervez Ashraf also expressed the hope that most probably the ARD would take part in the public meetings of the MMA. "For the restoration of true and genuine democracy, there is a need that the two alliances join hands on minimum one-point agenda," Mr Ashraf said.
However, he said, the final decision in this regard would only be taken in a meeting of the heads of the ARD component parties in Islamabad on November 20. In reply to a question, the PPP secretary-general said though the ARD had not received any formal invitation from the MMA for participation in the public meetings, but through the press, they had received a "good gesture" from the MMA. He said the ARD would also announce a protest plan and it was expected that the MMA would also take part in its public meetings.
He further said before the ARD meeting, a joint meeting of the Central Executive Committee (CEC) and the Federal Council of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) had also been convened at the party's central secretariat on November 19.
Mr Ashraf said the PPP would take decisions from the party's platform on November 19 and then it would seek opinion from other component parties of the ARD on November 20. He said besides joint movement, some other important matters would also come up for discussion in the ARD meeting.
Meanwhile, sources told Dawn that there were differences within the ranks of the PPP and the PML-N over the possibility of allout cooperation with the MMA keeping in view the past experience when the religious alliance left the ARD in the middle and signed an agreement with the government on the controversial Legal Framework Order (LFO). The sources said the ARD would also face resistance in this regard from other small nationalist parties.
