Elections 2013: PPP, ANP still divided about alliance

PPP says seat adjustment with its current coalition partner is possible.

PESHAWAR: Provincial Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Husain said the Awami National Party (ANP) is ready to form an electoral alliance in the province with the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party.

While talking to journalists on Monday, Husain said that the ANP is one of the major political parties in the province and its doors are open to all. He said they were ready to form an electoral alliance with the PPP for the next general elections, but the PPP’s provincial leadership has not confirmed to do so.

The ruling party’s Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) chapter had earlier announced that they would contest the general elections without forming an alliance with the ANP. PPP K-P President Anwar Saifullah Khan had said that the PPP has acted as the junior partner in the ruling coalition and that he wants to see his party in the “driving seat” after the next elections.

However on Monday, PPP stalwart and K-P senior minister Rahim Dad Khan said that this party may have a seat adjustment with its current coalition partner.

Speaking at the Peshawar Press Club, Khan said it would help in achieving consistency if development projects that were initiated in the current ANP-PPP coalition are completed.

Husain said that the heads of both parties, Asfandiar Wali Khan and Asif Ali Zardari, had close relations and hoped that they would both support the electoral alliance between the parties.

Kalabagh Dam

Rahim Dad Khan also showed strong reservations about the Kalabagh Dam issue having been taken to the Lahore High Court. He said it was a conflict between provinces and three provincial assemblies had rejected its construction in the past.

He claimed that 2,000MW of electricity would be generated over the next three years from K-P from various development projects undertaken.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 6^th, 2012.