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Pakistan opposition commits to forming a joint government

Leaders of Pakistan's two main opposition parties said they would form a coalition government if their groups win the biggest share of votes as expected in next week's parliamentary elections.

The announcement followed an hour-long meeting on Tuesday of Benazir Bhutto's widowed husband, Asif Ali Zardari, and former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, which came one day after a survey by a US government-funded organization predicted the opposition would score a landslide victory in ballot next Monday.

Zardari told reporters his Pakistan People's Party would invite Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N), as well as "other democratic forces" to join a governing coalition even if Bhutto's group won enough legislative seats to rule on its own.

"We will sit together because the country is passing through a dangerous phase, and we can only steer the country out of this crisis together," Zardari said. "I am conveying this message to the establishment that I will change this system."

Sharif, who hosted the meeting at his home, said the political, social and economic crisis facing Pakistan had reached the point that "we all have to join hands and save the country from any further deterioration."

Violence by Islamic extremists linked to the Taliban and al-Qaeda has been rising, particularly in the northwestern regions along the border with Afghanistan, and politics has been snarled in bitter wrangling over the long military rule led by Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.

A survey released on Monday by the US-based International Republican Institute said half the Pakistanis polled planned to vote for Bhutto's party and 22 percent backed Sharif's PML-N party. The party supporting the president came in third, with 14 percent.

The overwhelming majority of those polled would prefer a governing coalition of Bhutto's party and Sharif's bloc if no group wins a majority in parliament, the survey said.

The survey, which questioned 3,845 adults between Jan. 19 and Jan. 29, put Musharraf's approval rating at a record-low 15 percent.
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