ISLAMABAD, June 14: The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), two major components of the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy (ARD), have agreed on most of the points to be included in the charter of democracy to be signed by the two parties.

Sources told Dawn that the special four-member committee, constituted by PPP Chairperson Benazir Bhutto and PML- N Quaid Nawaz Sharif, to draft a common charter of democracy, held a meeting here on Tuesday.

The meeting was attended by Opposition Leader in Senate Mian Raza Rabbani, PPP Senator Dr Safdar Abbasi, parliamentary leader of the PML-N in

the Senate Ishaq Dar and PML-N coordinator Ahsan Iqbal.

According to the sources, the committee members discussed the proposals presented by the PML-N and the PPP to chalkout modalities of the charter of democracy signed by the heads of the two parties in Jeddah on February 10, this year. They said that the committee members had agreed upon some 18 points, out of a total of over 30 points.

Former prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif had decided to sign a charter of democracy to ensure that their parties would not make efforts to destabilize the government of the other party in future and work for strengthening of the democratic institutions in the country.

The PPP and the PML-N chiefs had announced that the two parties would create consensus among themselves for a strong and stable democratic order in Pakistan, based on mutual tolerance, an independent judiciary, supremacy of parliament and constitution, strong democratic institutes, respect for freedom of media and human rights, provincial autonomy and an independent election commission.

The sources said the next meeting of the committee would be held on Thursday (tomorrow) to discuss the remaining points on the agenda.

Naheed Khan: People’s Party Parliamentarians (PPP) MNA Naheed Khan has said the claims of the regime that it had broken the begging bowl had been exposed because the government was borrowing Rs212 billion as external receipts and Rs98 billion from the State Bank of Pakistan.

Taking part in the budget debate in the National Assembly, the PPP MNA said Rs800 billion generated by the federal government was being eaten up in debt retirement and defence expenditures.

Ms Khan claimed that only to sustain this budget, the government was borrowing Rs310 billion. She said debt servicing of Rs300 billion despite rescheduling of billions of dollars belied the claims of the government that the debt was decreasing.

She said the government had not announced any steps to provide employment and to make fair income distribution. She regretted that no measures had been taken by the regime to reduce poverty and inflation.