ISLAMABAD, April 5: The country’s political scenario was put in a spin on Thursday as senior government leaders kept issuing conflicting statements on reports of a deal between the government and Benazir Bhutto, with those managing the affairs of the Pakistan People’s Party in the country spending almost the entire day in denying any talks had taken place.Railways Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, giving an impression of an insider from President Pervez Musharraf’s camp, was adamant that there existed a proper back-channel contact between the two sides. The talks were in an advanced stage, he claimed.
“Things are moving in the right direction and the game has entered the semi-final stage,” was his way of describing the state of talks between a senior aide of President Musharraf and Ms Bhutto.
“No such thing is happening,” was how the ruling party president, Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, described the situation. He made the categorical statement after meeting the president and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, though on an unrelated issue.
His words were echoed by Information Minister Mohammed Ali Durrani in a speech in Punjab’s Kabirwala town, clearly indicating that either Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz’s cabinet was in disarray or, as some observers said, a deliberate attempt was being made to sow confusion in the opposition’s ranks.
With Ms Bhutto still in exile, the PPP leadership in the country would like its supporters to believe that reports about any deal and the sensation that it had created, was a part of some conspiracy to discredit the party.
Describing the reports as totally baseless, PPP’s information secretary, Sherry Rehman, and Ms Bhutto’s counsel, Senator Farooq Naek, said in a statement that certain ministers were spreading disinformation to make the people believe that the party had compromised on principles.
But all this has only added to a fresh debate about contacts between the government and Ms Bhutto, and the possibility of a pre-election deal. Although such speculations have been doing the rounds for the past many months, the latest debate has been triggered by the government’s move to abolish a special cell in the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) that was specifically dealing with the corruption cases involving Ms Bhutto and husband Asif Zardari.
Taking the controversy to a higher level, Railways minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed claimed that only a handful of people on both sides were aware of the `kind of contacts and the nature of talks’. However, the impression he gave while talking to Dawn was that he was privy to the process.
“I have been stating for the past many months that April and May would be very important for the country,” he said in an attempt to sound credible.
He even claimed that the decision to close down the special cell of NAB headed by Hasan Wasim Afzal, and his transfer to Punjab as the governor’s principal secretary was also linked to this process. “Of course, it is part of the deal,” he said.
In reply to another question, Sheikh Rashid said the same old team that included the president’s most trusted aide and Tariq Aziz, secretary-general of the National Security Council, was negotiating with Ms Bhutto in a secret back-channel process. He, however, denied that Punjab Governor Lt-Gen (retd) Khalid Maqbool had gone to Dubai in connection with the talks. “His trip was not linked to this process.”
SHUJAAT: But more than the PPP leaders, all this appeared a bit too much for the leadership of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League (PML), and prompted Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain to deny any such contact in categorical terms. He even declared that the cases being pursued by NAB against the former prime minister and her husband would continue.
When asked at a news conference about the remarks Sheikh Rashid had been making, the PML chief said `negotiations with individuals cannot be described as a deal’. He, too, was not prepared to explain such an open-ended remark.
On the other hand, the local PPP leaders were flabbergasted by the way people, particularly journalists, had been interpreting the closure of the NAB’s special cell.
Describing the special cell as a `brick and mortar department’ of NAB, PPP leaders Sherry Rehman and Farooq Naek said that after swallowing up millions in taxpayers’ money, such a cell had not been able to establish anything against Ms Bhutto and Mr Zardari.
They claimed that it was closed down because the regime realised it was better to shut it down than to pursue false and fabricated cases that had yielded nothing in ten years.
The PPP leaders stressed that not a single case had been withdrawn. “No hearing either at home or abroad has been cancelled and NAB continues its million-dollar persecution of the democratically-elected representatives,” they said.
The PPP leaders said the time had come when the government should shut down not just one but all the cells and offices of NAB, and the entire exercise had not given them any dividend.
However, many believe, it was premature to reject claims being made by either side, especially because no logical `explanation’ was available for the closing of the NAB cell.
Observers said the government’s stand at the next hearing in the Swiss case against Benazir would indicate that a deal had been made or not.
