November 28, 2007	Wednesday	Ziqa’ad 17, 1428

ISLAMABAD, Nov 27: Most parties in the All Parties Democratic Movement (APDM) appeared to be in a sate of indecision on Tuesday on the issue of election boycott.

Till now, only Tehrik-i-Insaaf of Imran Khan has come out with a clear stand and said it would boycott the polls because it did not consider Gen Pervez Musharraf to be a legitimate president.

An APDM meeting on Nov 29 at the Raiwind residence of PML-N leader Nawaz Sharifmay may face a lot of difficulty in adopting a unified stand on the issue.

At a meeting held a couple of days ago in Islamabad, all parties in the alliance had declared that they would boycott the polls if the government did not lift emergency, restore the Constitution and reinstate all deposed judges within four days.

It is not clear what position Mr Nawaz Sharif will take at the APDM meeting, although he said in Lahore on Tuesday that he had contacted PPP leader Benazir Bhutto and asked her to boycott the election.

Awami National Party chief Asfandyar Wali Khan and JUI(F) leader Maulana Fazl-ur-Rahman do not appear to be convinced about the boycott proposal.

Talking to Dawn on Tuesday, Maulana Fazl said: “When elections held in 1962 and 1964 under Gen Ayub Khan, in 1970 under Gen Yahya Khan and in 1985 under Gen Zia-ul-Haq, besides the 2002 elections under Gen Musharraf, were legitimate and contested, why contesting polls under a civilian president Musharraf should be a sin?”He said the past experience showed that staying away from the polls never helped the opposition because people went to cast their votes despite the boycott appeal.

“Gen Musharraf’s party will win if opposition parties boycott the polls and such an action will be effective only when all opposition parties take a joint stand. If any of the opposition parties takes part in the process, the boycott decision will be counter-productive,” the JUI leader said.

He categorically stated that his party was against the boycott move. “We will wage a struggle against dictatorship in parliament.”

Although Jamaat-i-Islami chief Qazi Hussain Ahmed supports the boycott proposal, he himself has filed nomination papers and his party has issued a list of its candidates who have filed papers from different constituencies across the country.

Therefore, sources close to some of the parties in the APDM believe that the Raiwind meeting may decide in favour of contesting the elections.