By DPA
Islamabad : Pakistan’s election campaign got on full gear Monday as the political backers of President Pervez Musharraf released their platform, and opposition parties began campaigning after dropping threats to boycott the polls.
The ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Q (PML-Q) unveiled its campaign manifesto that focuses on education, development and respect for women’s rights and freedom of speech.
“This reaffirms our commitment to human rights,” Shujaat Hussain, the party’s president, told a press conference.
The statement, made on International Human Rights Day, was ironic given that Pakistan remains under a state of emergency that Musharraf declared six weeks ago. Dozens of judges were sacked and some remain under house arrest, though Musharraf has said the emergency measures would be lifted this Saturday.
Meanwhile, opposition leader Nawaz Sharif resumed campaigning Monday, a day after an alliance of 33 political groups led by his Pakistan Muslim League-N failed to agree on a joint boycott of the Jan 8 polls.
Opposition leader Benazir Bhutto and her Pakistan Peoples Party are not part of Sharif’s alliance and have made it clear they intend to contest the elections despite claiming that “massive rigging” was already underway by Musharraf’s government.
Musharraf needs the elections to be seen as credible to prevent Pakistan from sliding into another political crisis, which his key backers in the Bush administration fear would affect his ability to fight Al Qaeda and Taliban militants who have regrouped along the border with Afghanistan.
If the main opposition parties had boycotted, it would have cleared the way for the PML-Q to maintain its stranglehold on parliament, but without a democratic mandate.
In a veiled attack on former prime ministers, Sharif and Bhutto, PML-Q leader Mushahid Hussain said the ruling party was “not a personality cult.”