IHT : Former PM Sharif welcomes Bhutto turning against Musharraf, says opposition should unite

Former PM Sharif welcomes Bhutto turning against Musharraf, says opposition should unite

The Associated Press | November 13, 2007

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan: Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Tuesday welcomed Benazir Bhutto's call for Pakistan's president to resign and said the opposition should unite against the military ruler.

Sharif called for Bhutto and other opposition parties to work together for the restoration of top judges President Gen. Pervez Musharraf ousted when he declared a state of emergency Nov. 3.

"What I'm hearing on TV, her statements today that she has cut off all her links with Pervez Musharraf and wants him to resign from both offices, I think it is a positive development and a step toward achieving the objectives of the opposition," he told The Associated Press by phone from Saudi Arabia where he lives in exile.

Sharif, who was ousted in a 1999 coup by Musharraf, said he had written to Bhutto three days ago offering to work together if she severed links with Musharraf and made clear what assurances she had sought from the military ruler in their negotiations.

"Let's see how she replies and what she says," Sharif said.

Bhutto, who returned to Pakistan after months of talks with Musharraf on forming an alliance after January elections, on Tuesday demanded Musharraf step down both as president and army chief and ruled out serving under him in a future government. She also said she wanted to build an alliance with other opposition leaders, including Sharif, to restore democracy.

Her call came after she was placed under house arrest for the second time in five days.

Sharif, who was deported from Pakistan when he tried to return in September from a seven-year exile, said he believed the opposition was "beginning to get together."

"That is the need of the hour because single-handedly to fight dictatorship is going to be a difficult task," he said. "If the entire opposition gets united on a one-point agenda to restore the judiciary as it stood on Nov. 3, all the problems confronting Pakistan today will be solved."

He claimed that would lead to an end of the emergency, military rule and allow the country to hold free and fair elections.

Otherwise, holding the vote under a state of emergency and with the judiciary and election commission skewed in Musharraf's favor would be a "joke," he said.

"If the results went against him, he could change them to suit himself," Sharif said, whose Pakistan Muslim League-N is one the two main secular opposition parties in Pakistan. The other is Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party.

Musharraf says he imposed the emergency because judicial activism was interfering with his government's efforts to fight rising Islamic militancy. He has promised to hold elections by January and return Pakistan to civilian rule.