LAHORE, Sept 1: A Pakistan People’s Party leader from Sindh defended the stalled talks between the party’s chairperson, Ms Benazir Bhutto, and President Gen Pervez Musharraf, rejecting the notion that it has affected the party’s or its leader’s popularity among the masses.
Speaking at a press conference on Saturday evening, Sindh PPP secretary-general Nafees Siddiqui maintained that his party believed in democracy and its leader had been talking to the general for negotiated return to complete democracy in the country in collaboration with liberal and democratic forces, and not out of hunger for power.
He claimed that the party’s popularity graph would not drift down if the dialogue with the president failed. He said the PPP was not a revolutionary party, but it believed in democracy and its each step was in line with the democratic norms and the Charter of Democracy it had signed with other political parties from the Alliance for Restoration of Democracy platform several months back.
He said Ms Bhutto had been calling for immunity for all politicians belonging to all political parties in her dialogue with the emissaries of the president. The PPP leader, he said, would never compromise on principles or join forces with the dictator as was being painted by the media. The dialogue was meant for a negotiated return to full democracy in the country, he reiterated.
He was accompanied by former Punjab PPP information secretary Naveed Chaudhry at the conference.
Mr Siddiqui also sought to dispel the impression that the PPP was in talks with the Muttahida Qaumi Movement. The party would be in a better position to hold dialogue with liberal and democratic forces after the general election, he added.
He claimed that Ms Bhutto took the party leadership into confidence before entering into talks with the president. He said the political conditions in the country were changing rapidly and there was clear division between liberal democratic forces like the PPP and its leadership and those opposed to democracy.
He alleged that PML-N leader Nawaz Sharif had violated the Charter of Democracy and ditched the ARD to please the establishment. He said the All Parties Democratic Movement had revived the Islami Jamhoori Ittehad, which was helped form by the establishment. He said the APDM was formed to create divisions in the ARD and the democratic forces.
Mr Naveed Chaudhry alleged that Mr Nawaz Sharif was coming back after getting a nod from the establishment. He said Ms Bhutto had always stood for democracy and was stressing that the president should take off his uniform. He said it was because of the PPP insistence on restoring democracy that its dialogue with the president had been stalled.
He said Shujaat Husain and his cousin, Pervaiz Elahi, did not want complete democracy because they knew they could not stay in power even for a day if they were not backed by a president-in-uniform. He said the anti-Bhutto forces had joined hands to derail efforts to allow the rule of democracy.