ISLAMABAD, May 6: A committee of the People’s Party Parliamentarians and the Pakistan Muslim League-N has finalised the “Charter of Democracy” and sent the draft to Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif who will sign it in London on May 14.

The committee, comprising Senator Raza Rabbani and Senator Dr Safdar Abbasi of the PPP and Senator Ishaq Dar and Ahsan Iqbal of the PML-N, met here on Saturday for the second day to finalise the draft.

Talking to Dawn, PML-N Information Secretary Ahsan Iqbal said they had sent the final draft of the charter to Ms Bhutto and Mr Sharif through email so that they could look into it before putting their signatures on it.

Replying to a question, Mr Iqbal said there were no chances of any change in the draft as it had been prepared in consultation with Ms Bhutto and Mr Sharif. He said the committee members had remained in touch with Ms Bhutto and Mr Sharif during the two-day meeting.

He said the committee members would leave for London on May 12 to be present on the “historic occasion” of signing of the charter.

Ms Bhutto and Mr Sharif had agreed in principle at their meeting in Jeddah last year to sign such a charter and had constituted the four-member committee to prepare the draft of the charter.

Mr Iqbal said that after signing of the charter by Ms Bhutto and Mr Sharif, the PPP and the PML-N would take other component parties of the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy (ARD) into confidence. Later, he said, efforts would be made to convince other opposition groups to sign the charter in the larger interest of democracy.

According to sources, the charter outlines future relationship between the two parties and agreement on some basic and important constitutional matters.

The charter, the sources said, outlined various steps for making the election commission a powerful and an independent institution, a mechanism for appointment of judges on merit and cooperation between the two parties on making amendments to the constitution to bring it to the pre-October 12, 1999, position.