NEW YORK, April 13: Former prime minister Benazir Bhutto has said that Gen Musharraf’s decision to hold referendum was unconstitutional and illegal and asked him to hold elections and present himself before the parliament to get elected.
In an interview with Dawn Ms Bhutto declared that she would return to Pakistan to contest elections “even if I was sent to jail.” However, she advised Gen Musharraf to share power with a consensus national government following October elections.
Saying that it was illegal for Gen Musharraf to hold referendum, Benazir Bhutto, however, noted that he was perfectly entitled to go to parliament to seek five more years.
She said through an intermediary she had conveyed to Gen Musharraf that if he was interested in sharing power he could initiate election reforms to hold fair elections.
“If you hold fair elections and form a government of national consensus then certainly you can tell the people of Pakistan I have a role to play and you can come before the parliament to seek a vote of confidence,” Benazir said.
Announcing that the PPP’s slogan in the referendum, which she believed Gen Musharraf would lose, would be “Go Musharraf Go. No Musharraf No.”
Ms Bhutto said, however, if Gen Musharraf did not believe in sharing power and think that people would follow him just because he was army chief, “people would not collude to the dictatorship or to the fig-leaf of democracy.”
Ms Bhutto noted that Gen Musharraf’s entire Lahore speech was an answer to her advice. “He has made it clear in his speech he will not share power and he made a critical error by calling for referendum. He cannot dictate,” she said.
Benazir Bhutto said when she first heard about referendum “I thought it would be about religious extremism. I didn’t know referendum was about me. All he did was talk about me which I take it as a back-handed compliment from him,” adding “the real issue is not whether he likes me or not. He knows PPP is a strong party and has the support of the people.”
She said that when Gen Musharraf came to power in 1999 all of us accepted him because he promised democracy but asserted “now he is reneging on that promise. He is trying to stab the Constitution in the back.”
Reiterating that the referendum would be unfair and a sham, Ms Bhutto pointed out that Gen Musharraf would “allow 18 year olds to vote but they are not on the electoral list. To have a referendum or elections there should be an electoral list. This is the first referendum which would be held without an electoral list.”
The PPP chairperson feared that the general would just announce the result because that’s the only way he could win, adding “I think he is an insecure leader who knows he lacks public support and confidence in himself and his own reforms to submit himself to the parliament for election.”
“There are small voices that are saying that the referendum are prelude to reneging on the promise to hold election, but there are voices that are saying that he would keep his promise to hold elections. I hope those voices are correct.
‘‘The elections are the credibility test of this regime and my participation also becomes the credibility test,” Ms Bhutto said, adding “I expect the elections to be reasonably fair hence I will contest. We have to see that they do implement the reforms. If they don’t implement the reforms then the elections will be a farce.”
Asked what she would do if she was disqualified for one reason or the other from contesting elections, Ms Bhutto said: “I live in present day reality. The reality of today is that I am qualified. I hope there are good judges on the Election Commission or in judiciary who would reject government’s efforts to disqualify me.”
