ISLAMABAD—The party of former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif will take part in a January general election after failing to arrange a boycott pact with his rival Benazir Bhutto, a spokesman said on Sunday.
Sharif had hoped fellow opposition leader Bhutto would join an alliance of parties seeking to isolate President Pervez Musharraf in protest at his declaration of emergency rule, but Sharif now feels he has no choice but to participate.
"There was no consensus among the opposition parties about boycott of the election, so we have decided to take part in the election," Ahsan Iqbal, spokesman for Sharif's faction of the Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N), said after a meeting of a cluster of opposition parties.
Iqbal said Sharif wanted the vote to be a referendum on reinstating judges Musharraf deposed on Nov.3 to fend off challenges to his re- election while he was still army chief.
"After failing to get (Bhutto's) Pakistan People's Party on board, he does not want the field to remain open for all Musharraf's loyalists and he wants to turn the election into a referendum," he said earlier.
"We should ask people to vote for us if they want restoration of the judiciary, so that we can block their attempt to legitimize the Nov. 3 action through parliament."
Sharif and Bhutto failed to agree on whether to insist that the judges Musharraf sacked be restored to their positions before the Jan. 8 election, and on whether to issue a deadline for other demands they did agree on.
Sharif is calling for the judges -- including several deposed Supreme Court judges still under house arrest -- to be reinstated before the election. He has been barred from running because of past criminal convictions he says were politically motivated.
Bhutto has filed her nomination papers for the election and argues a boycott would leave the field open for a walkover by Musharraf's allies. She says she reserves the right to protest after the vote if she deems it was rigged.
No Option
"If People's Party and other parties are participating in these elections, then it will be an exercise in futility if we are not part of the elections," said Javed Hashmi, a top Sharif party official tipped as a possible candidate for prime minister.
"We tried our level best, we went to Benazir Bhutto, we requested her ... ( to ) become part of this boycott. But then she decided to participate."
A boycott by the two main opposition parties and smaller allies would have deprived the vote of credibility and prolonged instability that has raised concern about the nuclear-armed U.S. ally and its efforts to fight growing Islamist militancy.
Violence flared in the restive northwestern Swat valley on Sunday when a suicide bomber rammed a car packed with explosives into a police checkpoint, killing six people including two children and a policeman. It was the latest in a rash of clashes and attacks by Islamist insurgents.
Bhutto, who is on a private trip to Dubai to visit her family, says the next parliament should decide whether to reinstate the deposed judges, which include former Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry.
The United States, keen to see stability and a moderate government focused on battling al Qaeda and pro-Taliban militants, has encouraged all parties to take part in the vote.
Musharraf has decided to lift emergency rule and restore the suspended constitution on Dec. 15, a day earlier than planned, Attorney General Malik Mohammad Qayyum said on Saturday. That leaves political parties three weeks before a Jan.8 election.
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