PESHAWAR, Dec 5: The Pakistan People's Party has said that a public meeting to be held by the ARD on Monday in Butkhela, would "prove to be the last nail in the coffin of opportunists" conspiring to rig the Dec 15 by-elections.

In a joint statement issued on Sunday, PPP senior vice-president Syed Qamar Abbas, former MNA Sardar Ali Khan, and PPP information secretary Syed Ayub Shah called upon democratic forces to make the meeting a success because it provided a chance to end the present "apolitical" government "led by opportunists and splinter groups".

They said Malakand had been a stronghold of the PPP and people would cast their vote in favour of Humayun Khan, the PPP nominee. They lashed out at the federal government which, according to them, was influencing the election process by making fake promises of development to the local people through its "powerless" state ministers.

They said Malakand's people were wise enough to decide about their representative on Dec 15 without taking any dictation from slogan-chanting clerics and time-servers. They claimed that PPP chairperson Benazir Bhutto would return to the country in 2005 and lead an election campaign.