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Musharraf-Benazir deal in the offing?

Nirupama Subramanian

The buzz is that Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf is trying to rope in Benazir Bhutto's PPP to shore up the credibility of his regime.

PHOTOS: AP

Pervez Musharraf and Benazir Bhutto... heading towards an uneasy alliance?

AT FIRST it was a straw in the wind, then a whisper. Now it is loud chatter burning the wires that General Pervez Musharraf is talking to Benazir Bhutto to ensure that the next elections throw up a government that will both remain under his control and have more democratic credentials and credibility than the present set-up.

The Benazir camp has as loudly denied the talk. So has the Government or at least some sections of it. When Railways Minister Sheikh Rashid announced a few days ago that a deal was in the offing between the Government and Ms. Bhutto, the Minister for Information and Broadcasting, Mohammed Ali Durrani, issued a stout denial.

Only in August, the PPP leader, who divides her time between London and Dubai in luxurious self-exile, and her fellow exile, Nawaz Sharif, held their own grand jirga in London with other opposition parties in the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy, resolving to begin a campaign to force out the Musharraf regime. Last month, the combined Opposition moved a no-trust motion against the Government and rallied against the killing of the Baloch leader, Akbar Khan Bugti.

As for President Musharraf, invited to speak at the Oxford Union last month, he reportedly wanted Ms. Bhutto's portrait removed from the Debating Society hall while he was there. The PPP leader, who studied at Oxford, was president of the union in 1977. The Union obliged.

Nevertheless, for political watchers, the signs on this trail are interesting. Such as the time it took for Ms. Bhutto to come up with a statement against the Musharraf book, in which he vilifies her father Zulifikar Ali Bhutto as a dictator masquerading as a democrat. It was left to senior PPP leaders to hold the fort in defence of her father for four days after the New York book launch. Finally, Ms. Bhutto did put out a strong statement, criticising the book as a "disgrace" for trying to sully the image of her father, who she said "remains the heartbeat" of Pakistan, while General Musharraf was an unelected leader.

Farahtullah Babar, a senior party leader and her spokesman in Islamabad, ascribed the delay to her travelling, and said Ms. Bhutto's "strident criticism" of the book should silence all the talk about a Musharraf-Benazir deal. But it has not. Even the staid Dawn carried a cartoon the other day depicting the PPP and the General seated at a table and looking in different directions, but shaking hands under the table.

After the Bugti killing too, Ms. Bhutto took three days to come up with a statement of condemnation. Other members of the PPP, in the thick of protests against the military action, had by then come up with stronger stuff than her line that the Bugti killing would have "far reaching consequences" for the unity and integrity of Pakistan.

Observers also point to the support the PPP gave the Government on the Hudood amendments Bill, despite its own stand that the 1979 ordinances must be repealed. The Bill effectively divided an opposition alliance that included the religious party coalition, Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, for the purpose of a no-confidence motion against the Government.

While the combined opposition managed to stay put for the no-trust motion (it was defeated) they fell apart on the Hudood amendments, with the PPP siding with the government while the MMA and Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League(N) opposed it. For the Musharraf regime, the most important gain from the controversy that erupted over the Bill aside from getting the PPP on its side, was that it eclipsed the outrage over the Bugti killing.

The PPP also does not go along with the strategy espoused by several other opposition parties, including the PML(N), of resigning en masse from the National Assembly and the provincial assemblies to force a political crisis for the Musharraf regime.

The U.S. angle

According to one story doing the rounds, the PPP and the Musharraf regime are in the initial stages of striking a deal for a political arrangement in the lead up to the election, and for government formation thereafter. The story goes that the U.S. believes that for its purposes, there is no alternative to General Musharraf as the leader of Pakistan.

But it wants him to give his regime a more credible and democratic look. That would help the Bush administration deflect some flak for supporting its "favourite dictator" as the Wall Street Journal recently described General Musharraf. The U.S. has said it will encourage him to hold free and fair elections in 2007. This could include giving Ms. Bhutto, or at least the PPP, an opportunity to make a comeback.

If a deal is indeed in the offing, one condition that Ms. Bhutto is certain to lay down is the withdrawal of the corruption cases and arrest warrants against her and her husband Asif Zardari.

As recently as September, a court in Pakistan issued for the third time non-bailable warrants against the couple for non-declaration of assets in the 1993 election but political analysts say that this could be also be a Government tactic to put pressure on Ms. Bhutto to strike a deal with the regime.

The News said on Thursday that "a top aide" of President Musharraf met Ms. Bhutto in Dubai two weeks ago. The newspaper reported "no major breakthrough" but said the two sides had agreed to keep the contact alive. The two sides are not focussing on any change in the present set-up but are looking at changes after the 2007 election, the newspaper said.

One argument that the Benazir camp pulls out to deny deal making with the regime is that General Musharraf will not want a party that has a mind of its own. The PPP would not allow him to call the shots and would pin him down to his constitutional role as President, unlike the ruling PML(Q), which is known as the King's Party — totally subservient to General Musharraf.

But if the increasingly loud chatter is to be believed, this could be a win-win deal for both. For the PPP, the temptation is the possibility of a political comeback, even if there are strings attached to the deal. President Musharraf is desperate for new allies to shore up his credibility, and the PPP, which has retained its popularity through all these years of military rule, fits the bill. Adjusting to the demands of a party that could give his regime some legitimacy at home and abroad, is a small price to pay for another term in office. One scenario being talked about is that the Musharraf regime keeps some cases going against Ms. Bhutto in order to retain leverage, but allows her to rule through a proxy Prime Minister.

Of course, there is also the possibility that all this build-up about a possible deal between the Musharraf regime and the PPP is a charade by the regime to keep the PML(Q) and the MMA in line. Both owe their current political strength in large measure to the political vacuum that resulted after the 1999 coup, and stand to lose big time if the PPP makes a comeback. As they say, in politics, nothing is ruled out.

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