Raja-pervaiz-PM-AP-670
Prime Minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf- File Photo by AP

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf will announce the roadmap for the next general elections on August 14, 2012, sources said on Sunday.

Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and Pakistan Muslim League- Nawaz (PML-N) held a meeting today to discuss the upcoming general elections.

The sources said that the general elections are expected in the first week of November, however, the prime minister will formally announce the road-map on August 14.

Seven-member team of the PML-N, which included Chaudhry Nisar, Raja Zafar-ul-Haq, Khawaja Asif, Ishaq Dar and Pervez Rasheed, and five-member team of the PPP, which included Khursheed Shah, Aitzaz Ahsan, Raza Rabbani, Farhatullah Babar and Jehangir Badar attended the meeting, the sources said.

It was agreed in the meeting that the prime minister, chief ministers, and other federal and state ministers in the care-taker set-up will be residents of Pakistan. The care-taker prime minister will neither be from the PPP or the PML-N, nor one who has been a member or leader of any other political party, the sources added.

Both the PML-N and the PPP, in consultation with other political parties, will also formulate code of conduct for the general election.

The meeting also decided that NAB references will not be filed against any political leader till the next elections.

The sources also said that the negotiations between the PML-N and the PPP on the care-taker setup were supported by few of the ally countries who wanted politics of reconciliation in the country.

Some media outlets reported that the names of two candidates are being discussed for the post of caretaker prime minister: Abdullah Hussain Haroon, currently Pakistan’s ambassador to the United Nations and Asma Jahangir, the former president of the Supreme Court Bar Association and former chairperson of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP).

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