PPP PML-N and ANP leaders to hold joint meeting today

Election victors are to hold the first joint meeting of their new MPs on Wednesday in a show of strength against President Pervez Musharraf, party officials said. Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) grouping and the Awami National Party (ANP) agreed to form a coalition last week. Musharraf’s backers were trounced in the February 18 polls and the coalition of opposition parties is demanding that the new parliament should be convened as soon as possible.
“Today’s meeting will be a show of strength from the coalition partners,” said ANP leader Afsandyar Wali Khan, who will attend the meeting alongside PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif and PPP co-chairman, Asif Ali Zardari.
“Musharraf should convene the parliament session as early as possible now,” Khan told AFP. The lunchtime meeting will bring together 89 lawmakers from the PPP, 67 from Pakistan Muslim League-N and 10 from the ANP.
The coalition has also been wooing several independent MPs in a bid to gain the two-thirds majority necessary to seek the impeachment of Musharraf, who seized power in a coup in 1999. Nawaz has openly called for President Musharraf to step down following the defeat of his allies in the elections, but the parties have not yet said whether they will try to impeach the president. Local media reports say Washington, Pakistan’s key economic and military backer, is trying to persuade them to give the key US ally in the “war on terror” a smooth exit from power. US Senator Joe Biden, one of three senators who observed the elections, said on Sunday that the political parties should not focus on old grudges and should “give him (Musharraf) a graceful way to move.”