ISLAMABAD, April 22: Pakistan People’s Party chairperson Benazir Bhutto arrived in London on Saturday where she would hold talks with Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) chief Nawaz Sharif on Monday, PPP spokesman Farhatullah Babar said here.

Mr Babar told Dawn on Saturday that during her brief stay in the UK, Ms Bhutto would attend some important party meetings besides holding talks with Mr Sharif.

Mr Babar said the two former prime ministers were likely to discuss a host of political issues during their meeting. Both the leaders, he said, would discuss the political situation in the country with a view to strengthening the Movement for the Restoration of Democracy.

Mr Babar said that Ms Bhutto would attend the preliminary parliamentary board meeting of the party’s Azad Kashmir chapter on Sunday. After making a transit visit to London, he said, Ms Bhutto would leave for the US to meet her husband Asif Ali Zardari, who was undergoing treatment in New York.

The spokesman said that Ms Bhutto would then return to London where she had several political engagements.

Mr Babar alleged that the Musharraf regime had set up a surveillance network in London to spy on Ms Bhutto’s activities in the UK. He said that on Ms Bhutto’s arrival, the surveillance team was present at London’s Heathrow Airport that took her pictures and later also followed her. He said the regime was perturbed over the prospects of the opposition parties joining hands against military dictatorship.

PPP president Makhdoom Amin Fahim, Raja Pervez Ashraf, Jahangir Badr, Senator Enver Baig and secretary general of the PPP Sindh Chapter Nafees Siddiqui are already in London to assist Ms Bhutto in the meeting with Mr Sharif. Sources in the PML-N said that Mr Sharif would be assisted by Senator Ishaq Dar, former Sindh chief minister Syed Ghous Ali Shah and party secretary-general Iqbal Zafar Jhagra in the meeting.

Earlier, the PPP delegation, led by Mr Fahim, had held talks with Mr Sharif in London on April 14 to finalize the draft of the ‘charter of democracy,’ to be signed by Ms Bhutto and Mr Sharif.

The sources said the PPP and the PML-N, two component parties of the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy (ARD), were seriously considering the option of boycotting the next elections, if Ms Bhutto and Mr Sharif were again kept out of the election process.

The sources said the schedule for the return of exiled leaders to the country would also be discussed in the meeting. The issue of the possible seat adjustments between the PPP and the PML-N in the next elections would also come up for discussion.

Another important item on the agenda of the PPP leaders’ meeting with the PML-N leadership was finalization of the much- awaited ‘charter of democracy.’ According to the sources, Mr Sharif has already approved the draft of the “charter of democracy,” prepared by a four-member committee of the PPP and the PML-N, while Ms Bhutto has suggested some changes in it.

The sources said that another meeting between Ms Bhutto and Mr Sharif was expected in May, this year, in which the two leaders were expected to sign the ‘charter of democracy.’

Through the ‘charter of democracy,’ the PPP and the PML-N leaders would enter into an agreement that they would not repeat past mistakes and allow the government of any party in future to complete its tenure. According to the sources, it has been given in the draft of the charter that the two parties would support each other in the parliament in scrapping the controversial 17th Constitutional Amendment that was passed by the present parliament after the Musharraf regime had reached an agreement with the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA).

Besides this, the sources said, the issues of the appointment of a powerful and an independent election commission, strengthening of judiciary and efforts to eliminate the role of military in politics were also part of the ‘charter of democracy.’ Mr Sharif and Ms Bhutto had agreed to prepare and sign the ‘charter of democracy’ in their meeting held in Jeddah, last year.

PPI adds: The heads and top leaders of component parties of ARD will be briefed next week in Pakistan on the “important” meeting between former prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif to be held in London.

ARD Chairman Makhdoom Amin Fahim, currently in London, will brief heads and top ARD leaders about the meeting between two former prime ministers.