Shake hands with a dictator

Benazir Bhutto returns to Pakistan

Opposition Pakistan People's Party (PPP) leader and former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto is in talks with Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf to return to his homeland as head of government . The 54-year-old politician announced this on Saturday at a press conference in London, surrounded by her party colleagues. So far, consultations with the president, taking place through his emissary in the British capital, “have been 80% successful.” However, Mrs. Bhutto will still return home “very soon” - the date the PPP will announce is September 14 “on Pakistani soil.”

And then, from September 15, we can expect elections for the president of this country, elected by both houses of parliament and provincial legislative assemblies, in which the PPP has a very strong position. There is only one candidate so far - 64-year-old Musharraf. He came to power in 1999 in a bloodless coup that cost then-Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif his post. As a result, the ruling Pakistan Muslim League (PML) split into two parties of the same name - a pro-presidential party named after the founder of Pakistan, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, and another supporting the ousted Sharif. The elections of the head of state should be followed by parliamentary elections.

According to Benazir Bhutto, the goal of her contacts with the current regime is to return democracy to the country: “Dictatorship is fraught with extremism and terrorism, and we want them not to exist in Pakistan. An alliance with the president is necessary, otherwise he may lose the upcoming elections, and extremists will come to power. The time has come to unite the efforts of all moderates.” However, Musharraf is not yet ready to satisfy the fundamental demands of the ex-prime minister: to renounce the post of supreme commander in chief (which he promised back in 2003), the right to dissolve the government and parliament, as well as criminal prosecution of persons who held leading positions in the state in the 1980s. -1990s.

Mrs. Bhutto, the daughter of Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, who was hanged in 1979 on trumped-up charges, occupied her father's chair twice - in 1988-1990 and in 1993-1996, becoming the first female prime minister in an Islamic country. After being removed from office, she was repeatedly imprisoned on corruption charges, and her husband Asif Ali Zardari served eight years in prison before being released on bail in 2004. The wife, rejecting all attacks as “politically motivated,” left her homeland in 1999 almost simultaneously with Nawaz Sharif. He was sentenced to life imprisonment, but was released on a promise not to engage in political activities for ten years.

In 2002, Musharraf banned Bhutto and Sharif from running in elections, noting that he would not allow them to return “any amount of power.” Since then, however, his own political positions have been severely tested, especially after the defeat in July of Islamic extremists who seized the Red Mosque in the capital Islamabad. Two weeks ago, the Supreme Court, headed by the president's opponent Muhammad Iftikhar Choudhry, allowed Sharif to return to Pakistan. The ex-prime minister intends to do this on September 10 - “to participate in the elections.” Commenting on Musharraf's attempts to seek a power-sharing agreement with Bhutto, Sharif, 57, said it would be "a shame if it is reached": "I don't agree with Ms Bhutto deciding to shake hands with the dictator, she gave me her word and now he’s breaking it.”

“An agreement between Musharraf and Bhutto can be reached. But this is not a topic of public discussion, especially for Benazir, since publicity could weaken her electoral opportunities, Vyacheslav Belokrenitsky, head of the department of countries of the Near and Middle East at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, told Vremya Novostei. “An agreement may be such that deputies from the PPP will abstain when electing the president, which, according to the law, will not affect the voting results.” The leader of the pro-presidential PML, Choudhry Shujaat Hussein, said yesterday that Musharraf, despite the advice of some of his associates, will not dissolve parliament and, apparently, will take off his military uniform, but only after being re-elected as president for the next five years.

Alexander SAMOKHOTKIN