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Pakistan's Opposition To Join Forces For Government

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By LAURA KING, Los Angeles Times

Published: February 22, 2008

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - The two main Pakistani opposition parties announced Thursday that they would work to form a coalition government, after dealing the party of President Pervez Musharraf a bruising defeat in this week's elections.

It was unclear whether the two would jointly seek to oust Musharraf in the wake of Monday's vote, which was widely viewed as a devastating verdict on his performance as Pakistan's leader.

Neither the Pakistan People's Party of assassinated former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto nor the Pakistan Muslim League-N, led by former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, won enough votes to govern on its own. Together they have a comfortable parliamentary majority.

The two parties appeared ready to paper over differences, at least for the time being, in order to move to assemble a governing coalition.

More talks lie ahead before the coalition's final composition is determined and a candidate for prime minister is put forward. Details of the tentative accord between the two sides also remained unclear.

"In principle we have agreed to stay together," Bhutto's widower, Asif Ali Zardari, who leads her party, told a news conference.

"We have to support each other," said Sharif, seated beside him.

According to Sharif, the two sides agreed that dozens of judges fired late last year by Musharraf should be reinstated. The Supreme Court had appeared poised to invalidate Musharraf's election when he declared a state of emergency in November and ousted Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry.
Zardari previously has said that the new parliament should decide whether to bring back the deposed jurists - a step that could cause complications for him as well as the president. Zardari still faces corruption charges dating to Bhutto's two terms as prime minister.

The two opposition leaders also left ambiguous whether they would push for the impeachment of Musharraf.

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