No alliance with PPP before polls, says Shujaat

Daily Times Monitor

LAHORE: The Pakistan Muslim League (PML) will not broker a pre-poll alliance with the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and will contest the upcoming national and local elections with its current allies, said PML president Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain while talking to two foreign newspapers.

Talking to the Arab News, Shujaat said the PML would contact other parties including the PPP after the elections’ results and also hinted that the party would not hesitate to align with other “likeminded” parties in forming a coalition government.

Shujaat told the Arab daily that President General Pervez Musharraf had succeeded in keeping the focus on the Kashmir issue and would resolve it “as soon as possible.” He said, “The PML is of the view that Kashmiris should be a party to the dispute between Pakistan and India, and be allowed to exercise the right of self-determination. The Indian government has also adopted a positive attitude toward finding a final settlement of the Kashmir problem,” according to Arab News.

About reports that there was dissention within the PML, Shujaat told Arab News that there were none and rumourmongers had created the hype. He said that he had been trying to make the party more cohesive and would coordinate party members’ efforts to make the PML a strong and progressive party.

Earlier Indian newspaper The Times of India reported that Shujaat also said there would be no pre-poll alliance with the PPP because the two parties had opposed each other for the past 30 years, however he added that there could be an alliance after the polls.

Asked about an alliance with Altaf Hussain’s Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), Shujaat told the Indian daily that the MQM was a government ally and it would make seat adjustments with it, especially in Sindh. He said the PML had no problems making adjustments with anyone, but in his personal opinion a PML-MQM alliance would be to the party’s disadvantage.

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