Pat Dollard | Young Americans

Says Benazir Bhutto

Telegraph:

President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan has agreed to resign as army chief in a power-sharing deal with Benazir Bhutto, the exiled former prime minister claimed yesterday.

He had previously insisted that he would remain army chief while standing for re-election as president. But a deepening political crisis appears to have forced the general, a key ally in the US-led war on -terror, to compromise.

After months of secretive political horse-trading Ms Bhutto, who has consistently claimed that she would not strike a deal with Gen Musharraf unless he stepped down as army chief, told The Daily Telegraph yesterday that the “uniform issue is resolved”.

“The uniform issue is key and there has been a lot of movement on it in the recent round of talks,” said Ms Bhutto, referring to negotiations in London, where she is based.

The claimed shift comes days after the Supreme Court ruled that another former prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, whom Gen Musharraf ousted in a coup in 1999, was allowed to return from exile.

Pakistan’s leading English-language newspaper, Dawn, said sources close to the president had confirmed he had offered to retire from the army, the main source of his authority, before being re-elected as a civilian president in mid-September ahead of general elections early next year.

Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, the railways minister, who held talks with Gen Musharraf on Monday, said: “The president has made up his mind on his uniform. He’ll make an announcement at an appropriate time.”

Ms Bhutto also claimed that in this week’s talks the embattled president placed a “new issue” on the negotiating table by seeking her support over his “eligibility” to be re-elected.

Gen Musharraf, faced by an increasingly bold Supreme Court, has asked Ms Bhutto to support a constitutional amendment allowing him to be re-elected. Ms Bhutto said the government would have to make “an upfront gesture of reciprocity, a clear indication of political support for the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP)”.

Ms Bhutto, who served twice as prime minister but whose tenures both ended amid allegations of corruption, said her party wanted to see signs that Gen Musharraf’s ruling party, Pakistan Muslim League-Q, is “no longer calling the shots”.

Ms Bhutto also wants immunity from prosecution, the lifting of a ban on a prime minister serving a third term, and the president’s power to dismiss governments to be curbed.

“We are close to an agreement but we are still not there,” she said, adding that the deadline for any deal was the end of this month.

Mr Sharif has pledged to return to Pakistan soon, presenting an immediate challenge to both Gen Musharraf and Ms Bhutto, whose dealings with a military dictator have tarnished her party.

Mr Sharif said yesterday that Gen Musharraf’s offer to step down as army chief was “too little, too late”.

“Musharraf does not qualify to be a presidential candidate, whether in or out of uniform,” he said in London. “He has lost credibility and the people of Pakistan want him out.”

Behind the scenes America and Britain are trying to forge an alliance between the military ruler and Ms Bhutto.