Pakistan's two largest Opposition parties have overcome traditional rivalry to plan a joint election strategy to defeat a new alliance of pro-government parties in the October 10 polls, party officials said today. The Pakistan People’s Party Parliamentarians (PPPP), a new wing of the party of self-exiled ex-premier Benazir Bhutto, and the Pakistan Muslim League of deposed premier Nawaz Sharif have agreed to plan their electoral seat strategy together. ‘‘We are making electoral seat adjustments together,’’ PPPP spokesman Farhatullah Babar told AFP. ‘‘We are looking at seats, and saying ok, you are strong here, you field a candidate and we will withhold, while we take care of this other seat which we particularly want, and they will not field a candidate in this particular seat.” PPPP officials had been engaged in talks since Monday with officials of the Nawaz Sharif party, the PML-N, Babar said. The local press has been rife with speculation for months of an alliance between the two parties, both of whose leaders are banned from contesting the polls under new laws brought in by President Pervez Musharraf. But Babar stressed that the joint approach by both the parties did not amount to an electoral alliance. ‘‘We remain independent parties with an independent platform, but we are cooperating in order to get a majority of pro-democracy parties in the Parliament,’’ Babar said.
