Musharraf, Bhutto agree crunch deal

PAKISTAN: Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf looked Friday to have cleared a key hurdle to his smooth re-election after agreeing a deal with former premier Benazir Bhutto that paves the way for power-sharing.

After increasingly frantic negotiations, the government and Bhutto’s party said they had both agreed on a national reconciliation accord which would be made public later Friday.

It takes a huge amount of pressure off Musharraf, a key US ally, ahead of Saturday’s presidential election in which he is controversially standing while still holding his post of army chief.

Bhutto, whose Pakistan People’s Party is the largest in the country, had threatened to rob the election of much of its credibility by pulling her MPs from parliament.

The accord gives an amnesty for politicians active in Pakistan between 1988 and 1999 — effectively clearing Bhutto of the corruption charges that forced her into exile eight years ago.

It came after Bhutto met with key members of her party in London where she has spent much of her time since leaving Pakistan.

Railways Minister Sheikh Rashid, a close confidant of the president, said the deal was done. “They have agreed on the draft and it will be issued by the president tomorrow. Benazir Bhutto has given her assent,” he told AFP.

Musharraf is expected to win a second term in Saturday’s vote by the two houses of parliament and four provincial assemblies, but he would benefit from Bhutto’s support ahead of general elections due in early 2008.

He has vowed to quit as army chief by November 15 if elected. It also specifies that if Pakistan’s main graft-busting body wants to lodge a case against a politician, it must first go through a special parliamentary committee “to avoid allegations of political motivations.”

“The ordinance is not party or person-specific,” the official said.

For its part, Bhutto’s party has agreed to withdraw a legal petition filed by its vice president in the Supreme Court that seeks to have the presidential election postponed, the official said. A senior party member in Islamabad, PPP lawyer Farooq Naik, confirmed the deal.

Islamabad, Friday, AFP