NEW YORK, Aug 8: Former prime minister Benazir Bhutto warned on Wednesday that if General Pervez Musharraf sought his own re-election before general elections her party might resign from parliament or boycott the elections.
In a telephone interview with Voice of America, Ms Bhutto who is in New York along with her husband Asif Zardari and her children, observed that the contentious issue of the president’s re-election would end up in courts.
“And of course there is the whole issue of the (presidential) re-election from the present assembly which, in the view of the PPP, would be illegal but in General Musharraf's view is legal. So I think that is an issue that is probably going to end up in the courts,” she was quoted by VOA as saying.
Ms Bhutto noted that Pakistani courts were becoming more assertive and independent after General Musharraf's dismissal of the Supreme Court’s chief justice was overturned. She said the presidential re-election issue might be legally challenged.
“The uniform is not negotiable,” Ms Bhutto stated, adding: “It is something that is not constitutionally permissible, and it is not negotiable because the whole country is against it, and PPP has spent its whole life fighting to make a distinction between democratic government and military government. Having the uniform blurs the distinction between military rule and a civil role.”
Saying that negotiations between her Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and President Musharraf's government had yielded no concrete results, Ms Bhutto asserted that President Musharraf was making promises but no concrete gestures towards a return to civilian rule.
“One thing is certain, that time is running out for General Musharraf's side to reach some kind of an accommodation with the opposition. And unless they can come up with upfront gestures I think it is going to be very difficult, given that nothing has happened since the process began,” the PPP leader declared.
She told VOA that the lifting of the ban on her return and the dropping of the charges against her would be the kind of upfront gestures she was looking for to come back and participate in the democratic process.
MAHEEN A. RASHDI ADDS FROM TORONTO: “I have the confidence that I can do it. My government has dealt with terrorism before and it can do so again,” said Benazir Bhutto in an interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), which was aired on Tuesday evening local prime time.
With the CBC correspondent sketching President Musharraf’s portrait in pithy terms as being a military dictator; as one who has cowed down to jihadi militants; who supported the Taliban till before 9/11 and who is anti-democratic, Ms Bhutto was cornered with a question as to how her party could join hands with someone who has been negating everything her party supposedly stands for.
But asserting that the PPP does not want the coming elections to be postponed under any circumstances, Ms Bhutto went on to reply in the same mode which seemed to come from a US secretary’s brief on Pakistan, explaining how the army has confidence in Gen Musharraf and how he has supported the US in the war on terror because of which the Pakistani government has gained financial aid from the West – aid which should not stop and which is beneficial to Pakistan and for that ‘cause’ PPP will support the current regime in carrying out the election.
Dear visitor, the comments section is undergoing an overhaul and will return soon.