PPP accused of back-stabbing

Pakistan's anti-military alliance today accused ex-premier Benazir Bhutto’s party of betraying a deal to unite against President Pervez...

Pakistan’s anti-military alliance today accused ex-premier Benazir Bhutto’s party of betraying a deal to unite against President Pervez Musharraf.

‘‘It is a very painful situation for us,’’ said Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan, head of the three-year old multi-party Opposition Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy (ARD).

Zardari sent to Karachi
under ‘secret’ deal

Islamabad: Asif Ali Zardari, the jailed husband of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has been taken to Karachi to visit his sick mother, under a secret deal with the military regime.
Zardari who convalesced in a hospital here has been shifted to Karachi to the hospital where his mother was also admitted.
Zaradari, who faced a number of charges, has been in jail for the past six years. His bail petition was scheduled to come up for hearing on Nov 13. — PTI

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Khan had brokered a deal earlier this week between the far-right religious parties and the ARD, spearheaded by Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz PML(N), to field a joint prime ministerial candidate against pro-Musharraf parties.

The deal could have sidelined pro-regime parties at the cost of installing a pro-Taliban cleric as PM. But the PPP have stalled in backing the cleric and their parliamentary leader Makhdoom Amin Fahim.

Meanwhile, the pro-Musharraf Pakistan Muslim League Qaid-e-Azam, PML(Q), which recently appealed for postponement of the inaugural session of the National Assembly, today called for its immediate convening after claimimg progress in ironing out differences with an alliance of hard-line religious parties.

The prospect of a hardline Islamist at the helm alarmed the financial markets. There are also fears that having the religious right in power could undermine the US-led pursuit of Al-Qaeda and Taliban operatives in Pakistan and Afghanistan.