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Benazir rejects Musharraf suggestion to delay return

ISLAMABAD: Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party on Thursday rejected President Pervez Musharraf’s suggestion that she should put off her planned October 18 return to Pakistan as “uncalled for” and asserted she would return as scheduled.

Gen. Musharraf told a television interviewer on Wednesday that Ms. Bhutto’s chosen date of return was “not a good time”. The Supreme Court will begin hearing petitions challenging his candidacy in last week’s presidential election a day earlier.

Gen. Musharraf, who won the election, suggested that she should put off her homecoming until the cases are decided.

“I would say she should not come before. We must tide over these problems. She should come later,” Gen Musharraf said in response to a question during an interview to the ARY television network. Asked if she should return after the court’s decision, he said: “Yes, certainly.”

But Ms. Bhutto’s spokesman Farahtullah Babar ruled out any change in her plan. “She is returning on October 18,” Mr. Babar said.

Ms. Bhutto’s date of return was announced last month, after which, she and Gen. Musharraf entered into an agreement for an ordinance giving her amnesty from the corruption cases against her and husband Asif Zardari, in return for the party’s tacit support to the general for his election.

Gen. Musharraf’s suggestion, coming days after the ruling Pakistan Muslim league (Q) president Chaudhary Shujat Hussain said the ordinance was not intended seriously and was only a political tactic to win Ms. Bhutto’s support in the presidential election, has riled the PPP.

Babar Awan, a PPP member of the Senate, said his party was “independent and not subject to advice from anyone”.

“We do not know for what reasons of political expediency he has made these remarks. We had already taken a decision, ordinance or no ordinance, consent of the government or no consent, that Mohatarma [Madam] Bhutto is coming back on October 18. We do not take his advice as something that can revise this plan,” Mr. Awan said.

The PPP senator also said that a summons to some party leaders to fly to Dubai for a meeting with Ms. Bhutto was not to discuss Gen. Musharraf’s latest statement but to discuss arrangements for the PPP’s leader’s arrival.

Observers were uncertain about how seriously to take Gen. Musharraf’s remarks, which he did not make on his own, but made in the course of replies to questions during the interview. Official pronouncements on Ms. Bhutto’s return have not indicated that the government is preparing to obstruct her.

But they said it may reflect either Gen. Musharraf’s insecurity or abundant caution on his part, or both, with regard to the pending legal challenges in the Supreme Court, and the possible political impact of Ms. Bhutto’s return on the court hearings.

Gen. Musharraf has promised to step down as Army Chief before being sworn in for a new term, but he must wait for the court’s decision first. A senior Minister in the Musharraf government has repeatedly warned that an adverse decision by the Supreme Court may lead to the imposition of martial law.

Meanwhile, Ms. Bhutto’s lawyers have moved an anti-corruption court for withdrawal of references against her and her husband Asif Zardari under the terms of the newly promulgated ordinance. Interior Minister Aftab Sherpao, who used to be with the PPP, also applied to the court for withdrawal of a case pending against him.

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