KARACHI, Sept 9: The Pakistan People’s Party and the Pakistan Muslim League (N) will poll anti-military regime votes in their respective strongholds in the general elections, the PPP chairperson Benazir Bhutto said in London on Monday.

“We are also seeing whether we could agree on a negative and positive list,” said Ms Bhutto in reply to questions faxed to her just before she left London, about how the two former arch rivals were contemplating countering the regime after the rejection of their nomination papers.

The questions were sent her through People’s Party Parliamentarians leaders.

Asked what was in store for herself, the PPP and the democratic dispensation in the country now, Ms Bhutto said: “Individuals are less important than a nation and a system of governance.

“By changing the laws to keep out the front-runner from the elections, the military regime shows how frightened it is of the people of Pakistan and of their support for my leadership,” said Ms Bhutto.

She claimed that the military regime knew that she had the strength to stand up for the people without fear or favour. For example, her leadership protected the farmers of the Okara farmlands from death, destruction and eviction. It protected labour and government employees from retrenchment. It gave youth the hope of a better tomorrow and women of a safer Pakistan.

Today the livelihood of doctors and teachers and traders was threatened by a military regime because the people were denied a leadership of their choice, she said.

The self-exiled leader of the PPP said: “It weakens Pakistan when the armed forces take over power to protect the vested interests of a few generals. Elections, where the final vote is counted in secrecy after the boxes are transferred in darkness from the four corners of a province to the provincial capital, are an expensive farce at the cost of the hungry and the poor.

“Little good will come of a tailored exercise stitched together to keep out the people’s choice. I am confident that the persecution of the democratic forces will bear fruit.”

Asked that the present regime seemed to be more afraid of the PPP than the return of Nawaz Sharif, Ms Bhutto replied: “It appears so, given the discriminatory treatment, although the Nawaz family are also suffering and deserve to return to their country.”

She evaded the question when asked to comment on how in the first place the nomination papers of Nawaz were accepted with those of Shahbaz and Kulsoom? Was it done with the blessings of some powerful highups, and what role, if any, the present governor of Punjab might have in it?.

“This question should be put to the Sharif family,” was her response.