NEW YORK, Oct 9: Calling Gen Pervez Musharraf’s election “a perversion of democracy” a major US newspaper has chided the Bush administration for encouraging Gen Musharraf to make a “backroom deal” with PPP leader Benazir Bhutto which it said was “his latest attempt to buy time and stay in office”.

In an editorial “Gen Musharraf’s Cynical Win”, the New York Times stressed “rather than encouraging such cynical deal-making, Mr Bush should have encouraged a more-inclusive election process true to his democratic principles and true to what so many Pakistanis — professionals, ordinary people, even some in the military — want.”

“Under the deal, the flawed former prime minister and leader of Pakistan’s most popular party gets to return home, escape prosecution on corruption charges and — if all goes according to plan — stand for another term. And Gen Musharraf gets to claim to the Pakistani people and Washington that he’s moving toward civilian rule”, the Times observed.

Saying that “returning Pakistan to civilian government has been a declared goal of the United States since Gen Musharraf seized power in 1999”, the Times expressed concern that “time and again he has promised that he would resign his post as chief of army staff and take off the uniform, but even now he is playing cute about when — and whether — that might happen.”

“Almost all of the time, President Bush has acquiesced in Gen Musharraf’s many misdeeds — and provided billions in American aid — as payment for the general’s service in the war on terror. There, too, the general has delivered a lot less than promised, and the Taliban and Al Qaeda are resurgent along Pakistan’s border”, it said.