Former prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif have finally met in London and signed the Charter of Democracy which they will now submit for approval before the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy (ARD) on July 2, 2006. There was some “difference of opinion” over Ms Bhutto’s demand that Mr Sharif forswear the NAB “accountability” cases he had initiated against her, but it was overcome after hours of discussion — without Mr Sharif agreeing to do so. The Charter — called “a milestone in the struggle for real democracy in Pakistan” — is supposed to contain a vow to oust military interference from the political system and not to make “deals” with the army over the democratic order. According to the statements made by the two leaders of PMLN and the PPP after the signing, the two mainstream parties have “discussed issues related to Pakistan’s security, such as provincial autonomy and the situation in Balochistan and Waziristan” and “agreed upon a strategy to resolve the country’s internal security issues”. The two leaders also discussed international issues, “particularly Pakistan’s relations with India and Afghanistan, and agreed to adopt a joint strategy on these matters in the future”. The two leaders demanded “an independent election commission to monitor the next general elections”, and refused to accept “elections under President General Pervez Musharraf’s government”. A caretaker government, in their view, was not the one envisaged in the 17th Amendment and was more in the nature of a “national government”. They did not point to any pledge about amending the Constitution to ensure an independent judiciary, which could not be “stuffed” by either party. In saying that they would not accept the 2007 elections if General Pervez Musharraf was in charge, they have practically opted out of them. This means that the PMLN and the PPP, who together polled the highest number of votes in the 2002 election, are willing to wage some kind of struggle to force Musharraf to bow out and allow a “national government” to take over. Do the two parties have the “street power” to wage this struggle? It is this question that prompted the reporters to ask the two leaders when they planned to return to kick off the campaign. The answer was that both would return to Pakistan “before the elections” but would not give a date. One can assume that they would choose a time of crisis when Musharraf looked shaky and was no longer able to order their arrest with any confidence about being obeyed. It is just as well that the two have not waxed judgmental about the problems of Balochistan and the Waziristan agencies. Their parties back home have disagreed over the policies adopted by the ruling PML in these two areas. The two leaders have stated that the Charter will deal with the question of provincial autonomy but any further elaboration would have queered the pitch for them in the ARD where Sardar Akbar Bugti’s Jamhoori Watan Party sits as a member. If TV interviews are any index, the “three-sardar” Baloch leadership will not settle for anything less than a full ownership of the natural resources which they will sell on the international market at the going rates with Pakistan as just another buyer. The two parties have been taking stances on Waziristan pretty close to the clerical parties of the MMA in parliament and may find it difficult to formulate a more nuanced policy without attracting rebukes of betrayal from them. A large measure of “consensus” has been arrived at between the ARD and the MMA while the combined opposition was struggling against the Musharraf-led PML government. The demands of joint strategy were so urgent that the PPP and PMLN seemed to forget that the MMA had accepted the article in the 17th Amendment that disqualified both Ms Bhutto and Mr Sharif as prime ministers. When the die is cast in September, the two parties may find once again that the compulsion to gather “street power” against Musharraf makes them dependent on the clerics. MMA’s Qazi Hussain Ahmad says he is going to start the assault on Musharraf in September with 100,000 seminarians whether the other parties join him or not. Will the PMLN and the PPP agree to his agitational leadership in the hope that he would destabilise the country enough to allow them to return to Pakistan and form a “national government” and hold the 2007 election? These are questions the Charter of Democracy does not answer. * SECOND EDITORIAL: Don’t go out without security The Punjab University (PU) teachers’ association has warned that it “will go to any length” to punish the hooligans who attacked and dishonoured boys and girls of the university out on a “study tour” near Head Balloke last week, if they are not caught and punished under anti-terrorism laws. The students were out on an excursion when youths of the Joya tribe of Phoolnagar began eve-teasing. When attempts were made to stop them, a fight ensued in which the girls got their clothes torn and the boys got beaten up by the armed ruffians. Realism demands that we take account of the deteriorating social environment in and around Lahore. To start with, reaction among ordinary citizens against boys and girls doing anything together in public is negative, mostly induced by the city’s powerful clergy and the TV channels where the clerics pass judgments on social behaviour without any regard to social reality. (One should note that the clerical alliance MMA has vowed to end co-education in all institutions.) After this phase of “religious outrage” comes the libido of the improperly educated. Most cases of eve-teasing in Lahore’s Jinnah Bagh for instance used to start with an appeal to religion, followed by sexual assault. The university teachers should think hard before sending boys and girls out together. In all cases, armed security should be arranged beforehand and no risks accepted. *