December 18, 2006	Monday	Ziqa'ad 26, 1427

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LONDON, Dec 17: The 10-day-long election strategy meetings of the PML-N concluded here on Saturday, with the party deciding to gather all opposition forces on a single platform and raise the political temperature inside the country to a point where the regime, fearing defeat, would be left with no other option but to massively rig the elections.

This, the party believed, would undermine the credibility of the election, if held at all, among the supporters of General Musharraf in the capitals of rich countries, besides making his institution realise the futility of supporting him further.

It is understood that the idea behind gathering all opposition parties, including the MMA, PONM, ANP and nationalist parties from Sindh, on a single platform is not to put up joint candidates but to make seat adjustments and form a national government after elections. The national government would then hold a ‘genuine’ election after six months with all the parties contesting on the basis of their respective manifestos.

Attended by about 100 PML-N leaders representing almost the entire country, the party meetings are understood to have deliberated exhaustively the current political situation in the country and decided that instead of giving a walkover to President Musharraf and his party by boycotting the forthcoming election, it would be more effective to give the junta a run for its money from a unified platform, creating an impression that a winning combination was opposing General Musharraf at the polls.

This, they thought, would force Musharraf to hit the panic button and make him either postpone the elections or rig them massively; and in both cases, they opined, he would be the loser.

The party also seems to have decided to use ‘Musharraf-Army baiting’ as a tactical weapon during the election campaign apparently kicked off on Saturday with a hard-hitting speech against the Army and General Musharraf by Nawaz Sharif.

While addressing the final session of the strategy meetings, Mr Sharif recalled that it was on this day 35 years ago that General Musharraf’s predecessor General Yahya Khan brought the worst kind of ignominy to the nation by surrendering to India in Dhaka and making 90,000 soldiers prisoners of war.

Blaming the Army for almost all the ills and setbacks that the nation has suffered over the last 60 years, he said it fought three wars with India and was defeated in all of them.

“And, it was while an Army general was ruling the country that we lost Siachen,” he added.

He said four generals sitting in the National Security Council were deciding the fate of the 150 million people without as much as your leave from the elected parliament.

Mr Sharif said General Musharraf had reduced the issue of Kashmir from being a matter of plebiscite to a question of plots. “Perhaps, he is planning to set up a defence housing authority across the LoC as well,” he added.

Others who spoke included PML-N president Shahbaz Sharif, secretary general Zafar Iqbal Jhagra, Ms Najma Hamid and Ishrat Ashraf.

Siranjam Khan, Ghous Ali Shah, Pir Sabir Shah, Mehtab Abbasi, Mushahidulla and Zubair Gul, President PML-N, UK were also president.