LONDON, July 7: The two-day Multi-Party Conference (MPC) started here on Saturday, with the leaders of main parties, the PML-N, PPP, JI, JUI and others vowing to launch a determined struggle to rid the country of the army rule for all times to come.

But one could discern a clear cut difference in the ideas of the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal leadership and that of the Pakistan People’s Party.

Pakistan Muslim League (N) chief Nawaz Sharif being the host inaugurated the conference with what could be described as the fieriest and perhaps the most impressive speech of them all, demanding that President General Musharraf resign from his two posts forthwith.

“I am not making this demand so that my government gets restored as a result, but my proposal is that an interim government should immediately take over and hold fair and free elections and any party which would win should make the government,” he added.

And meanwhile, he said: “We should all vow not to let the army come back to power ever.”

He said his party’s members in parliament would resign if Gen Musharraf attempted to get re-elected from the present assemblies.

And what appeared to be an indirect below the belt punch directed at the PPP which by its own confession is still negotiating a deal with the military dictator, he said it would amount to helping the army tighten its grip and lengthen its rule if any party were to go along with Gen Musharraf in this charade of an election even if that party said it would not vote for him.

He also declared that his party would not participate in the coming elections in case President Musharraf remains in power, “because we do not expect him to hold free, fair and transparent elections”.

JI chief Qazi Hussain Ahmed agreed with most of the points made by Mr Sharif and said that in order to make the struggle against the military rule meaningful, the conference should come up with some concrete decisions like forming a united front of all opposition political parties and formulating a well thought-out strategy on how to involve the people at large in this struggle.

Qazi Hussain said the bar on the return of Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto to Pakistan should be violated and the two allowed back home.

He described the MQM as a fascist party and demanded that it should be banned and asked the British government to withdraw the sanctuary that it had provided to Altaf Hussain who, he said, was conducting terrorist activities inside Pakistan sitting in London.

The JI leader put the PPP on the defensive when on being invited to speak he said he being a guest of the ARD which was hosting the MPC would like to hear the ideas of the other component of the alliance, the PPP, as well before submitting his own ideas at the conference.

For a few second there was a pin drop embarrassing silence, with Makhdoom Amin Fahim giving an embarrassing smile kept quite. But the awkward moment passed when on being requested by Shahbaz and Nawaz Sharif, Qazi Hussain went ahead with his speech.

The third speaker, Makhdoom Amin Fahim of the PPP, also endorsed the major thrust of Mr Sharif’s speech and said his party would go along with other parties, if it was unanimously decided to resign from parliament by all opposition parties in case Gen Musharraf tried to get himself re-elected by the present assemblies. He said it would also not be averse to consider other options as well.

Explaining to the reservations of his party to the option of resignation, he referred to the earlier unfulfilled promises to resign by some political parties alluding to JI’s frequent declarations to the effect.

He agreed with Mr Sharif that fair and free elections could not be held with Gen Musharraf in power and proposed the formation of a government of national consensus which, he said, could then appoint an independent election commission for holding fair, free and transparent polls.

While demanding that the Constitution be restored in its original form and content as it stood on October 12, 1999, Mr Fahim said the PPP would like the provision on joint electorate and women’s rights as amended left untouched.

The next speaker, Maulana Fazlur Rehman of the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam, said the option of resignation should be considered only when such a move would actually stop President Musharraf from going ahead with his election from the present assemblies.

This left a wide room for the JUI to get out of any such obligation in case the other parties finally decided to resign. Here he also appeared to differ from his MMA partner, Qazi Hussain Ahmed.

He said one could make blistering speeches against the army rule and talk passionately about getting rid of it sitting in the cool confines of London, “but in order to translate these desires into reality we need to strategise our future moves”.

He said President Musharraf had divided the nation on various lines: moderate, enlightened moderates, extremists and terrorists and was pitting these so-called groups against each other.

Maulana Fazl advised the participants to keep in mind the external pressures as well and exhorted for making a plan to rid the country of the US dominance as well while trying to throw away the yolk of the army.

He thought by keeping 80,000 troops near the tribal areas, the government was provoking the extremists and “God forbid a time could come when the national army will be fighting its own nation as we saw in 1971 when the army launched a military operation against our own people in East Pakistan.”

Without being very specific and playing with the language, the Maulana rejected Amin Fahim’s proposal for not touching the joint electorate clause and the amended clauses concerning the rights of women.But when in the same vein he tried to create the impression that Gen Musharraf considered the PPP closer to his ideology and the MMA as his opponents, Sheri Rehman, Makhdoom Amin Fahim and Safdar Abbasi shouted back at him, saying that it is the JUI which is sitting with the government in Balochistan, not the PPP.

Interestingly, he took an unexpected swipe at the dismissed Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry asking whether the man who had taken oath on the PCO refused to resign in his own personal interest or in the interest of the independence of judiciary.

Those who followed Maulana Fazl included Imran Khan, Asfandyar Wali Khan, Rafiq Tarar, Allama Sajid Naqvi and Mehmood Khan Achakzai.

ARD faces split

THE MPC is likely to cause a split in the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy as the People’s Party has refused to sign a resolution which proposes that all parliamentarians resign their seats in case President Pervez Musharraf decides to get himself re-elected from the existing assemblies.

The PPP is also not agreeable to the formation of an alliance comprising all opposition parties and alliances.

The PPP fears such an alliance would be hijacked by the MMA and it would again derail the democratic process.