NEWYORK, June 8: PPP leader Benazir Bhutto on Friday asked the Bush administration to put pressure on President Pervez Musharraf to start democratic process in the country.

She said: “The Musharraf regime is no bulwarks against Islamist takeover.”

“It is democracy alone that can undermine the forces of religious extremism as well as give hope and opportunity to the people of Pakistan,” underscored Ms Bhutto in an op-ed article in the Wall Street Journal.

“A return to democracy is not just important for Pakistan—it is important for the entire world.”

“Yet Mr Musharraf and his regime are promoting the perception that he is the only bulwark between the West and the nuclear armed fundamentalists.”Debunking the line of Gen Musharraf’s government that politicians are ‘corrupt’ and ‘incompetent’ hence incapable of governing, Ms Bhutto pointed out that Pakistani public viewed the corruption charges against politicians as an attempt to divert attention from the institutionalized corruption of the military.

Ms Bhutto asserted that the “anti-dictatorship sentiment in Pakistan has reached a fever pitch, and Pakistan aspires to be a democratic nation.

Condemning the May 12 killings in Karachi, where in lawyers, human rights activists and ordinary Pakistanis were slaughtered in the streets as they rallied in the streets to protest the unlawful suspension of the Chief Justice of Pakistan, she said General Musharraf “will not brook any opposition.”Ms Bhutto said that instead of building the strong, stable and enlightened democracy as he promised when he took over in 1999 in a coup “Gen Musharraf has undermined secular forces by openly rigging elections, clamping down on the media and free speech failing to pursue investigations of innocent civilians who have disappeared, as well as intimidating political opponents by any means, including physical attacks.”