Former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif now wants his party to take part in a January general election after failing to clinch a boycott pact with his rival Benazir Bhutto, party aides said yesterday.

Sharif had hoped that fellow opposition leader Bhutto would join an alliance of parties seeking to isolate President Pervez Musharraf in protest at his declaration of emergency rule, but now feels he has no choice but to participate.

?After failing to get (Bhutto?s) Pakistan People?s Party on board, he does not want the field to remain open for all Musharraf?s loyalists and he wants to turn the election into a referendum?, said Ahsan Iqbal, spokesman for Sharif?s faction of the Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N).

He said Sharif wanted the vote to be a referendum on reinstating judges Musharraf deposed on November 3 to fend off challenges to his re-election while still army chief. ?We should ask people to vote for us if they want restoration of the judiciary, so that we can block their attempt to legitimize the November 3 action through parliament?, Iqbal said.

Sharif and Bhutto failed to agree on whether to insist that the judges Musharraf sacked be restored to their positions before the election, and on whether to issue a deadline for other demands they did agree on.

Sharif, who is calling for the judges ? including several deposed Supreme Court judges still under house arrest ? to be reinstated prior to the election, has been barred from running because of past criminal convictions he says were politically motivated.

Bhutto has filed her nomination papers for the election, arguing a boycott would leave the field open for a walkover by Musharraf?s allies and says she reserves the right to protest after the vote if she deems it was rigged. ?If People?s Party and other parties are participating in these elections, then it will be an exercise in futility if we are not part of the elections?, said Javed Hashmi, a top party official tipped as a possible candidate for prime minister.

A boycott by the two main opposition parties and smaller allies would have deprived the vote of credibility and prolonged instability that has raised concern about the nuclear-armed US ally and its efforts to fight growing Islamist militancy.

Violence flared in the restive northwestern Swat valley on yesterday when a suicide bomber rammed a car packed with explosives into a police checkpost, killing six people including two children and a policeman, the military said ? the latest in a rash of clashes and attacks by Islamist insurgents.

The United States, keen to see stability and a moderate government focused on battling al Qaeda and pro-Taliban militants, has encouraged all parties to take part in the vote.

Musharraf has decided to lift emergency rule and restore the suspended constitution on December 15, a day earlier than planned, Attorney General Malik Mohammad Qayyum said on Saturday. That leaves political parties three weeks before a January 8 election.

Simon GARDNER