ISLAMABAD, Oct 31: Pakistan’s self-exiled ex-premier Benazir Bhutto directed her party to stay united on Thursday, amid widespread reports of government efforts to strike a deal with party members that would see Ms Bhutto sidelined.

“You were elected on the tickets of the PPP and you will remain as members of the PPP, as one force,” Ms Bhutto said in a telephone address from the United States to Pakistan People’s parliamentarians and executives.

The PPP meeting fell three weeks after elections, supposed to restore civilian rule following a three-year military regime, resulted in a hung parliament. Parties are still deadlocked in efforts to form a governing coalition.

The PPP is locked in an internal debate over whether to soften its rejection of key constitutional changes and join the PML-Q in a coalition, or to sit in opposition and continue to fight the changes, secretary-general Raza Rabbani told AFP.

President Musharraf’s administration is said to be keen to bring the PPP into a ruling coalition on the condition that Ms Bhutto, who was barred from Oct 10 polls, remain in exile, which she has imposed on herself since 1998.

“We are one party. The party comes first and loyalty to the party is the priority,” Ms Bhutto told the PPP meeting.

“Whether we are in government or opposition, we will conduct ourselves with dignity and as a collective force.”

Ms Bhutto’s speech followed two mysterious meetings by top PPP leaders which have set the capital alight with rumours that the government was wooing the party, or part of it, into power on condition that Ms Bhutto not return to Pakistan for several years.

Speculation of a government-Fahim deal was fuelled by the midnight disappearance of Bhutto’s jailed husband Asif Ali Zardari, a former PPP senator, from an Islamabad hospital he regularly visits for treatment.

His two-hour disappearance late on Tuesday night raised alarm in the capital, with Ms Bhutto herself reported to have panicked that he had been kidnapped.

Fahim has admitted meeting Zardari in hospital, while several local newspapers have quoted unnamed sources as saying Zardari also met senior generals to discuss an offer to free him from prison and send him into exile overseas.

Fahim, however, told reporters on Wednesday the PPP would “never make any deal with the government” on Zardari’s release.

Ms Bhutto’s speech also fell amid anticipation the government was preparing to lift a ban on party defections, as a means of breaking the deadlock in coalition building by encouraging dissidents from several parties to support PML-Q. —AFP