Bhutto Talks of Return to
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, June 3 — Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto is stirring up Pakistani politics by quietly talking through intermediaries about a power-sharing deal with the president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, and suggesting in an interview that she could return to Pakistan before the end of the year.
Threatened with arrest and dogged by corruption charges, Ms. Bhutto has sat out the last eight years in self-imposed exile in
Her party, the Pakistan People's Party, was heavily represented in a peaceful rally for Mr. Chaudhry in Abbottabad on Saturday, just weeks after more than 40 people died in
As
Under General Musharraf, she noted, Al Qaeda and the Taliban have used lawless areas of northern
Despite his repeated insistence that Ms. Bhutto will not be allowed to participate in the elections, General Musharraf, according to aides and diplomats, has been conducting discreet negotiations for some kind of deal that would allow her to return and him to stay on as president. The corruption charges, which Ms. Bhutto says are politically motivated, might then be dropped. "General Musharraf says that he wouldn't allow me back and I interpret that to mean that he would then arrest me and prevent me from having freedom of movement and freedom of speech and freedom of association," Ms. Bhutto said in the interview, which took place recently at one of her homes outside
To some, the prospect of Ms. Bhutto's return confronts
General Musharraf seized power in a coup in October 1999, overthrowing Ms. Bhutto's successor, Nawaz Sharif, who also lives abroad to avoid prosecution on corruption charges. General Musharraf was at that time embraced by much of the population, wearied by turbulent years of short-lived, self-serving civilian governments. Yet today, Ms. Bhutto, part of a storied family dynasty, is probably the most popular politician with national appeal. If allowed to return, she may well be in a position to form the next government and serve again as prime minister, even if General Musharraf remains as president, if both agreed.
The daughter of a politician executed by the military, educated at Harvard and
She left
Her brother was shot dead in 1996. Ms. Bhutto's husband, Asif Ali Zardari, was jailed on suspicion of the murder, though the case was never proved. Ms. Bhutto says the killing was a plot by Pakistani intelligence to divide and weaken her family.
That same year, Ms. Bhutto's three-year-old government was dismissed amid accusations of mismanagement and corruption. Three months later she suffered a resounding defeat in elections. While she says the balloting was rigged, the polls also reflected the disillusion and anger of Pakistanis over a deteriorating economy, rising violence and a leadership that many here felt was concerned only with itself.
Though she has lived in self-imposed exile since 1999 to avoid prosecution for corruption, she denies wrongdoing. Her party fared badly in the previous two elections, after she and her husband left the country, but it remains politically strong.
No date has been set for the next elections, but the voting must take place by the end of the year. "Ultimately, for the elections to be credible, it is important that the participation should not be denied to a leader of a party, and a party which is the most popular party in the country," Ms. Bhutto said.
For the general's part, after a series of political missteps in recent months, including the suspension of the justice, he finds himself in ever greater need of allies if he is to win re-election by Parliament. Some of his supporters see Ms. Bhutto as the preferred moderate partner.
The violence in
"The fact that he was ready to engage with the P.P.P. was positive," Ms. Bhutto said. "I think he toyed with the idea of moderate forces getting together." Ms. Bhutto presents herself now as a leader who not only can help Pakistan thread a potentially treacherous course back to civilian rule, but also as someone who can stem a tide of extremism, a claim that opponents say she is exaggerating to gain favor in the West.
Two battle lines are being drawn in
"Anyone who has lived in
A negotiated transition to democracy remains her preferred option, she said, because violent confrontation could quickly be usurped by extremists. "If the streets hold sway, then it is anyone's guess who actually captures the movement," she said. "After all, when there was a revolution in
But Ms. Bhutto warned that while General Musharraf may speak in favor of moderate Islam, the advisers and the military and intelligence extremists around him, who hold the strings of power, were working against it. "The country is actually run by military hard-liners," she said. "It remains my concern that these hard-liners want to destabilize democracy in
She pointed out that despite the general's declared policy of leading
Critics have long charged that the situation was not wholly different even under her government, when
She said she had collaborated with the F.B.I. in the arrest of Ramzi Yousef, the man behind the 1993 bombing of the
"Look at what there was in 2002, and see how much worse the situation has got by 2007," she said. Despite her alarm, Ms. Bhutto said she believed that the religious extremists in both the intelligence circle and jihadi groups were running out of options. And open and fair elections would show just how little support the religious parties and extremists actually had in the country, she said. "Elections are important because at the end of the day when we empower the people, the minority extremists will get totally marginalized and sidelined; their strength is being disproportionately blown up," she said.
"It is a battle for the heart and soul of
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