Zardari’s message to Nawaz has defeat written all over

By Ansar Abbasi

ISLAMABAD: Cornered and extremely vulnerable President Asif Ali Zardari has conveyed to his political rival Nawaz Sharif that he has learnt from his past mistakes and would now like to achieve what the political forces would have achieved many months back.

Though Nawaz Sharif may have agreed to meet President Zardari, the fact is that he has completely lost faith in the PPP co-chairperson and the country’s head of the state. “He lacks seriousness,” was Sharif’s immediate reaction when told what the president had conveyed to him.

A credible PML-N source confided to The News that a PML-N senator was on Thursday told by a senior PPP leader to convey it to Nawaz Sharif that the president is fully prepared to immediately proceed on the pending issues like undoing of the 17th Amendment and the implementation of the Charter of Democracy (CoD).

The PML-N senator was told that the president has learnt the lesson from his past mistakes and is now willing to closely work with Nawaz Sharif to attain the common objectives as agreed in the CoD. The PPP leader, who besides being the member of parliament, is also a senior officer-bearer of the party, told the PML-N senator to assure Nawaz Sharif that now the president really means to do what should have been done soon after the February 2008 elections.

The source said that on Friday Zardari’s indirect message was conveyed to Mian Nawaz Sharif who, nevertheless, remained unimpressed. Instead, the source said, the PML-N Quaid’s immediate response was that Zardari is a non-serious person and is not trustworthy.

The PML-N Quaid and other party leaders remain deeply suspicious of President Zardari, who reneged on public commitments time and again during the last 16 months.

The PML-N senator, who was asked to deliver the president’s message to Nawaz Sharif, confided to this correspondent on condition of not being named that his suspicion is that President Zardari is now wooing the PML-N and its Quaid to strike a deal on the issue of the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO). But the senator was confident that his party would not compromise on the NRO issue and would oppose it tooth and nail both within parliament and outside.

President Zardari and Nawaz Sharif are scheduled to meet on October 26 after a gap almost a hundred days. They last met in mid-July at Jati Umra but their talks did not achieve any thing worthwhile.

The restoration of independent judiciary under Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, re-opening of the NRO issue, the Pakistan Army’s serious reservations over the Presidency-endorsed Kerry-Lugar Act, and the president’s waning popularity have weakened Zardari’s position.

President Zardari is in dire need of political support to consolidate his position but the PML-N is not prepared to trust him any more unless he immediately moves to get the 17th Amendment undone. Promises, commitments and assurances would not work this time, a party source said, adding “We would not let him (President Zardari) use us yet again”.