Bhutto’s return vow deepens Pakistan crisis
BRITAIN: Pakistan’s political crisis deepened on Sunday after
exiled former prime minister Benazir Bhutto vowed to return home having
failed to reach a power-sharing deal with President Pervez Musharraf.
Key US ally Musharraf now faces the spectre of two ex-premiers flying
home to challenge his shaky eight-year military regime, with Nawaz
Sharif, the man he ousted in a 1999 coup, also pledging to come back.
The nuclear-armed Islamic republic has been wracked by instability
ahead of an election due in September or October, in which Musharraf
plans to make a hotly-opposed bid to win another five-year term as
president-in-uniform.
Two-time premier Bhutto said on Saturday that she was determined to
end her self-imposed exile over corruption charges and would announce
the date of her return on September 14, four days after Sharif is set to
fly home.
“No understanding has been arrived at and we are making our plans to
return,” Bhutto told a press conference in London when asked about the
week-long backroom negotiations with Musharraf.
“I plan to return to Pakistan in the next few weeks to work for a
moderate, a democratic Pakistan,” said Bhutto, who has come under fire
in her own Pakistan People’s Party for dealing with a military ruler.
Sunday, Bhutto told the BBC the talks had stalled over the issue of
parliamentary powers. She had demanded that Musharraf relinquish his
power to dissolve parliament.
“I’m trying to get a parliament that is sovereign, that can tackle
the issues of militancy and poverty that are at the moment the main
trouble spots for Pakistan,” she said. “I don’t want to see chaos and
anarchy and bloodshed,” she added.
“I want to help the people of Pakistan have a peaceful, transitive
way towards democracy, and that’s why we had this dialogue.”
Musharraf has sent his aides back to London in a frantic bid to
rescue the deal with Bhutto, who served as prime minister from 1988 to
1990 and again from 1993 to 1996, sources here said.
The United States and Britain have reportedly been pushing behind the
scenes for the pact, seeing the Oxford-educated Bhutto as a natural ally
for the relatively moderate Musharraf.
The talks ran into trouble after the ruling Pakistan Muslim League
Party opposed her demands that Musharraf shed his uniform before
reelection, cede his powers to dissolve parliament and allow premiers to
serve a third term.
London, Monday, AFP |
