The New Nation - Internet Edition

As Pakistan's new parliament met on Monday, opponents of President Pervez Musharraf vowed to end his "dictatorship". Slain opposition leader Benazir Bhutto's party will head a coalition government with former premier Nawaz Sharif as its junior partner.

Backward looking stance of the victors of the February 18 elections, however, make democracy lovers to raise their eye-brows because through those they could pick up new threads of discord with a weakened Pervez Musharraf and the military establishment that he represented for nine years.

"This is the last day of dictatorship," Bhutto's widower and de facto Pakistan People's Party chief Asif Ali Zardari told reporters after meeting Sharif in the heavily-guarded parliament building on Monday.

"This is our first step. We have conveyed a message to the world community to support democracy, which defeats dictatorship," Zardari was quoted as saying. Sharif said the coalition's strategy was "very clear-our agenda is democracy versus dictatorship. It has to end, it has to be defeated."

When Benazir Bhutto (assassinated on December 27 last) was sworn in as prime minister for the first time in 1988 at the age of 35, she was scrupulous and farsighted enough to bury the past hatred with the establishment that had sent her father Zulfiquar Ali Bhutto to the gallows. Yet she was removed from office 20 months later under the order of then president Ghulam Ishaq Khan on grounds of alleged corruption. In 1993 Bhutto was re-elected but was again removed in 1996 on similar charges, this time by President Farooq Leghari. Bhutto went into self-imposed exile in Dubai in 1998 and returned to Pakistan on October 18, 2007, after reaching an understanding with President Pervez Musharraf by which she was granted amnesty and all corruption charges were withdrawn.

Nawaz Sharif was twice elected Prime Minister of Pakistan, serving two non-consecutive terms, the first from November 1, 1990 to July 18, 1993 and the second from February 17, 1997 to October 12, 1999 when his government was deposed from office by General Pervez Musharraf, who later declared himself the Chief Executive of Pakistan. Sharif was convicted of hijacking and terrorism after he blocked Pervez Musharraf from landing his plane in Karachi in lieu of dismissing him from his chief of the army staff post.

The Supreme Court of Pakistan did uphold the position of the Army, disqualified Nawaz Sharif from holding any public office for 21 years, forbade his involvement in Pakistani politics (something which he has since chosen to ignore), and fined him 20 million rupees. A plea bargain and intervention of the Saudi Royal family spared Sharif from serving a prison term; instead he was exiled to the Saudi Kingdom.

Sharif isn't in the present assembly because he was barred from contesting. Zardari didn't run for a seat in the elections. Both the leaders Monday watched the proceedings from the parliament visitor's gallery. Musharraf quit as the country's army chief in November after nine years in the post, following opponents' demands that he give up the military role while serving as president. He appointed General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani as the new army leader. Musharraf now faces a fight for his political survival as well as public anger over rising Islamist bloodshed and a host of economic problems.

In a sign of looming trouble for Musharraf, Sharif said he and Zardari had agreed in principle to restore judges Musharraf fired when he imposed emergency rule in November. The judges, if reinstated, can be expected to take up the question of the eligibility of Musharraf to stand for re-election as president while still army chief last October. They were expected to rule against Musharraf when he imposed the emergency.

Nawaz Sharif has been persistently demanding the president step down peacefully; other options, including his impeachment through Parliament, remain open. Imran Khan and the Pakistan Bar Council have warned that if the judiciary is not restored, anarchy will creep up and the popular parties will have to face agitation. In the presence of a vibrant civil society and an aggressive media, the public opinion is likely to be respected.

A defiant President Pervez Musharraf has rejected calls for his resignation as the opposition coalition could impeach him or water down his powers. Musharraf said he would remain in office until the end of his five year term in 2012.

Zardari has said his party ``wants governance and not just government'' and both Zardari and Sharif have pledged to change the Constitution and laws through the parliamentary process to bring about a balance between the powers of the president and prime minister. The PPP will choose a prime minister from its lawmakers in the assembly and Sharif's party will support the PPP's choice, according to their agreement. The constitutional amendment that PPP and PML-N are planning to enact is likely to do away with the National Security Council to curb the power of the military.

The signals that have so far been emitted by the leaders of the two major parties do not indicate a move towards national convergence by forgetting past hatred. They would succeed in their mission to restore democracy if they turn their backward looking stance into a forward looking one. The leaders of PPP and Sharif's party must go slow and weigh their past mistakes. Their politics of the past has to change to deal with the changed situation.