Nawaz Sharif will host opposition talks in London this weekend in a bid "to rescue" Pakistan from eight years of military rule and restore democracy, his spokesman said on Friday. The conference in London would take place on Saturday and Sunday as President Pervez Musharraf struggles with increasing protests against his rule at home.
"Eight years of military rule have brought Pakistan to the brink of being a failed state," Nawaz's spokesman Nadir Chaudhri told AFP. "This initiative is really to rescue the state, to make it functional again and to re-empower it."
Imran Khan is also expected at the conference, after joining forces with Nawaz last month at a London press conference where this weekend's talks were announced.
Nadir claimed that under Musharraf the state's authority had "eroded alarmingly," the Taliban's Islamist fundamentalist ideology was encroaching, and Islamist extremism was breeding with the lack of democracy. The so-called All Party Conference (APC) hosted by Pakistan Muslim League-N amounts to a "unique event" designed to formulate a broad-based response. "For the first time, the entire spectrum of Pakistan's political parties, from the liberal to the religious, and representatives of civil society will jointly endeavour to agree to a plan of action," he said.
"The APC will signal Pakistan's break with its dictatorial past and herald an era of institutional reform leading to establishment of permanent democracy and the rule of law," he added. He said 37 political parties had been invited to the talks, including Benazir Bhutto and her PPP.
He said that Benazir was currently in London but would not attend the conference and would instead send Amin Fahim. The conference would take places against a backdrop of increasing turmoil in Pakistan since Musharraf suspended Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry on March 9. Delegates at the conference have been invited to formulate a strategy to ensure restoration of the constitution and "genuine democracy with supremacy of parliament," Nadir said in a statement.
And, they would be asked to work for "free and fair elections under an interim caretaker government without Musharraf" as well as push for a free and independent judiciary, he added.