Word: boycotts
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Sharif, who had long held that the elections are illegitimate and should be boycotted, defended his decision on Dawn News television today, saying that after failing to convince fellow opposition leader and former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto's party and a leading religious party to join him, the boycott would be ineffectual. "If any boycott is to take place it must be unanimous, any partial boycott would be disastrous for the opposition," he said...
...members of his party if he did not allow it to join the elections. "The [party] had a lot of heavyweights that stood a good chance of winning key seats if they contested," says Ayesha Tammy Haq, a prominent political talk show host. "If Sharif called for a boycott, they would have defected. The party would have been in tatters...
Sharif first suggested that he would boycott the elections nearly two weeks ago, the day President Pervez Musharraf was sworn in for his second term as President. It was a protest against Musharraf's state of emergency, which Sharif said would limit campaigning and make the elections unfair. Even though Musharraf announced on the same day that the emergency would be lifted on December 16, Sharif maintained that without the restoration of the Supreme Court, which the President dismissed when he suspended the constitution and declared the state of emergency, elections would legitimize Musharraf's actions...
...political observers said that without unified support from the opposition, a boycott by Sharif's party would have been meaningless. On Sunday, Sharif acceded to that reality. He said that he has decided to fight the system from within: "We came to the realization that we must participate in the elections to block Mr. Musharraf's unconstitutional actions...
...will have no choice but to follow her lead - boycotting may give him the moral high ground, but his party would lose power. And that explains today's theatrics in front of the Chief Justice's house. Bhutto made a similar move last week. Both candidates will wave the boycott card until the very last minute, in a game of political poker that will end on December 15, the deadline for candidates to enter the race. Still, it's Musharraf who holds the trump card. The emergency, he says, will be lifted on December 16, but he could prolong...