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.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS