ISLAMABAD, Jan 10: The chairperson of the People’s Party Parliamentarians, Benazir Bhutto, will not attend the multi-party conference in London next month which has been proposed by the PML-N Chief, Nawaz Sharif.

This was decided in principle by the People’s Party Parliamentarians (PPP) at a meeting in Dubai, sources told Dawn. The party apparently does not want to enter into any agreement with the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) – an alliance of religious parties.

However, the PPP decided not to make any announcement about its decision after the meeting and instead referred the matter to its Central Executive Committee (CEC) which is expected to meet in Islamabad in the third week of this month.

Those present at the Dubai meeting were PPP president and the ARD chairman Makhdoom Amin Fahim, secretary-general Raja Pervez Ashraf, deputy secretary-general and opposition leader in the Senate Mian Raza Rabbani, information secretary Sherry Rehman, Senator Dr Safdar Abbasi and Naheed Khan, political secretary to Ms Bhutto.

The sources said the decision was taken as Ms Bhutto had serious reservations about taking part in the MPC where the leaders of the MMA would also be present. They said there was a possibility that the party might send its representatives to the MPC.

They said the PPP leaders were also annoyed over the move of Mr Sharif to convene the MPC from the PML-N platform without consulting the PPP, despite the fact that the two parties were allies in the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy (ARD). They said the PPP leaders believed that such a conference could have been convened from the platform of the ARD.

It may be mentioned that Mr Sharif was willing to hold an MPC in London to formulate a joint strategy by all opposition parties regarding next general elections and for that purpose he was personally contacting all the leaders on telephone. Though, the date for the MPC was yet not finalized, but according to the PML-N Secretary General Iqbal Zafar Jhagra, the conference was expected to be held in the second week of February.

The recent statement by Ms Bhutto that her party was ready to participate in elections under Gen Musharraf had exposed the rift within the ranks of the opposition parties as the PML-N was reluctant to make any such commitment. The decision of Ms Bhutto not to attend the MPC would further widen the gulf between the two major opposition parties which had already signed a Charter of Democracy last year.