Pakistan parties to form coalition

[bemildred]

Source: al Jazeera

Nawaz Sharif, the former Pakistani prime minister, has said that his party will form a new coalition government and work with the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) of Benazir Bhutto.

The announcement on Thursday came after the PPP and Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-N party were overwhelmingly victorious in Monday's parliamentary polls.

Sharif said: "We have agreed on a common agenda. We will work together to form the government in the centre and in the provinces."

Sharif had earlier held talks in Islamabad with Asif Ali Zardari, the widower of Bhutto, another former prime minister and leader of the PPP who was assasinated in December


Read more: http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/C7457025-557D-4B05-8906-1EB2C95B8647.htm

[SpiralHawk]

1. "Parties ! Cool. Where's my invitation?" - Commander AWOL

[ohio2007]

2. Islamists are the real losers in Pak polls ( no party in Tehran )

They backed the dark horse as did the little state controlled kingdoms of the region

Islamists are the real losers in Pak polls

Washington, Feb 22 : The Pakistan election's "real losers" were the Islamist parties and not President Pervez Musharraf, Iranian journalist Amir Taheri has written in an article. He said that despite funding being provided by Tehran and wealthy Gulf Arabs, the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) had failed to register the "approaching victory" that they had boasted about.


"The Islamist defeat in Pakistan confirms a trend that's been under way for years. Conventional wisdom had it that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the lack of progress in the Israel-Palestine conflict, would provide radical Islamists with a springboard from which to seize power through elections," the Daily Times quoted Taheri, as saying.


He also informed readers that till date no Islamist party has registered a majority vote in any of the Islamic countries where reasonably fair elections are held. If this is not the case then one thing is for sure that Islamist share of the vote has been on decline.
"Far from rejecting democracy because it is supposed to be 'alien', or using it as a means of creating totalitarian Islamist systems, a majority of Muslims have repeatedly shown that they like elections, and would love to join the global mainstream of democratisation. President Bush is right to emphasise the importance of holding free and fair elections in all Muslim majority countries," he said.


"Tyrant rulers fear free and fair elections, a fact illustrated by the Khomeinist regime's efforts to fix the outcome of next month's poll in Iran by pre-selecting the candidates. Support for democratic movements in the Muslim world remains the only credible strategy for winning the war against terror," he added.

snip
http://story.malaysiasun.com/index.php/ct/9/cid/303b19022816233b/id/330115/cs/1/

Say,
I wonder how the Brotherhood in Egypt will do at the polls....


...I'm sure the mullahs of Iran will run fair elections next month....

/sarc

Had to find this article from Malasia MSM that covered the 'also rans' of the pakistan elections that our western MSM didn't think worthy to print

[ohio2007]

3. Pakistan Taliban warn new government

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan militants linked to al-Qaeda warned any incoming civilian government on Sunday that they would strike even more viciously if President Pervez Musharraf's war on terror was continued in tribal areas.

Following last week's inconclusive election, several political parties are in talks to form a coalition big enough for a ruling majority in the National Assembly. How they deal with the militants will be one of their most pressing challenges.

In northwest Pakistan on Sunday, militants attacked a security post and killed a policeman and two paramilitary servicemen and wounded six others, officials said.

snip
Islamist parties ruled the border areas of North West Frontier Province and Baluchistan and were the main opposition in the National Assembly for five years until being swept away in last week's vote by liberal groups led by assassinated former prime minister Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party(PPP).

snip
The PPP and other parties have been critical of extremism and militants and vowed to fight them.

snip
The fate of Musharraf, who seized power in a military coup in October 1999, could depend on what kind of coalition emerges, although his supporters, with 39 seats, could still have a say.

If the PPP and PML-N forge a coalition, as expected, it will be the first time in Pakistan's history the two main parties have come together.

Both have said they want Musharraf to quit and have previously suggested impeaching him if he refuses to go, but Amin Fahim, the PPP's vice chairman and a candidate for future prime minister, told CNN on Sunday that his party had no immediate plans to seek the president's removal.

"We should not rock the boat at this time. We must have a civil transition of power from the military to civilians,"Fahim said.



http://www.eleconomista.es/mundo/noticias/372178/02/08/Pakistan-Taliban-warn-new-government.html

Maybe the new govt will respectfully decline the US aid offer to fight terra in thier own country. refusing US aid would be a step in the right direction wouldn't it?

...being the root of all evil and that.