PPP allows electoral adjustment with PML-N at local level -DAWN

Low Graphics Site


October 27, 2007	Saturday	Shawwal 14, 1428

PPP allows electoral adjustment with PML-N at local level

By Ashraf Mumtaz

LAHORE, Oct 26: Pakistan People’s Party candidates for the national and provincial assemblies in Punjab will be allowed to make electoral adjustments at the local level with the PML (Nawaz) against the ruling PML, sources say.

The decision was taken at a recent PPP meeting presided over by former prime minister Benazir Bhutto and the candidates are preparing their election strategy accordingly. Those making adjustments will inform the party chairperson.

The sources claimed that the PPP expected to win more than 80 NA seats in Punjab and a majority of the 372 seats in the provincial assembly.

The PML, though committed to contesting the election with its coalition partners, seems in no mood to accommodate the Muttahida Qaumi Movement which wants to put up its candidates on a number of seats in Punjab. The PML believes that it is in a position to defeat its challengers single-handedly because of its government’s performance. It is convinced that it would repeat the performance of 2002 elections and get a two-third majority. More than 80 per cent of its candidates in the province will remain unchanged.

The ruling party is focussing its energy on Punjab to be able to form its governments at the centre and in the province.

The PML-N will join hands with the opposition parties to be specified by its central working committee in November. The party’s provincial president Sardar Zulfikar Khosa said on Friday that if the elections were free and fair the PML-N would get about two-thirds of the seats in the province.

The Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal claims that this time it will be able to make its presence felt in the province. The alliance has a soft corner for the PML-N and Tehrik-i-Insaaf.

A PPP leader said his party would not join hands with any MMA party because of their alleged support for militancy and extremism. He said that although the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam was comparatively progressive, the PPP could not go for electoral cooperation with it as long as it was part of the MMA.