Former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto is prepared to "share power" with President Musharraf's military regime. That may be a contradiction in terms, writes Graham Usher in Islamabad For the last two weeks Pakistan's former prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, has been offloading media interviews. And the gist is that she could have a "good working relationship" with Pakistan's president-in-uniform, General Pervez Musharraf. For a political leader whose prime-minister father was executed by one military dictator, and who has been in self-exile from Pakistan for the last nine years on corruption charges "trumped up" (she says) by another, this is some admission, even if one long sought by Musharraf's allies in Washington and London. If the "good working relationship" were actually to happen, it would be "the mother of all deals", says one Pakistani analyst. It has yet to be clinched. Rather the status of Bhutto- Musharraf "deal that is no deal" is like the liberated Chinese woman described by Mao Tse- tung: "She doesn't exist. But she is beginning to want to exist". The deal's terms exist, according to sources. They are that Musharraf would be re- elected Pakistan's president for another five years by the present national and provincial assembles later this year. Bhutto would return to Pakistan, with the corruption cases against her and her family dropped. Free and fair general elections would he held, "uninfluenced" by Pakistan's ubiquitous intelligence agencies. Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party (PPP) would form the next government, in coalition with Musharraf's Pakistan Muslim League-Q (PML-Q). There remain two imponderables. The first is Musharraf's insistence that he keep his uniform as army chief of staff throughout the next presidency. In her interviews, Bhutto was non- committal about this. The PPP, however, was not. "Musharraf in uniform cannot be acceptable to us at any cost," says one PPP activist. The second is Bhutto's demand that she return prior to the elections with an eye to challenging for prime minister. The PML-Q says this is impossible. Why do Musharraf and Bhutto want each other? For Bhutto the answer is simple. While still Pakistan's most charismatic politician, she knows another five years in exile will lessen her appeal, erode further the support of her party and strengthen those religious forces most opposed to her "secular liberal agenda" for Pakistan. For Musharraf, the compulsion is strategic and tactical. Strategically, say sources, he has realised the Pakistan army's historical alliance with the Islamists is untenable in the post 9/11 world, especially given the army's financial and political dependence on Washington. Coaxed by the Americans, he is therefore seeking another political constituency that would widen his legitimacy at home and license his pro-American policies abroad. The PPP is the perfect partner -- it is opposed to the Taliban, supports Musharraf's crackdown on Al-Qaeda and has applauded the peace process with India. Tactically, Musharraf is in the throes of his worst domestic crisis since he stole power from an elected government in 1999, and on two fronts. The first is the ferocious political backlash caused by his decision to suspend Pakistan's chief justice, Iftikar Mohamed Chaudhry, on 9 March. The fall-out has not only meant gathering protests in Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi. It has united all shades of the Pakistan opposition around the twin demands of Chaudhry's reinstatement and Musharraf's resignation. "Musharraf has never been weaker than he is today," says analyst Hassan Askari Rizvi. The second is what Bhutto calls the "creeping Talibanisation" of Pakistan. In the last six months pro-Taliban Islamists have spread their retrograde brand of rule from the tribal areas next to Afghanistan to Peshawar to, in places, Islamabad. The latest taste of their lash was on 28 April, when a suicide bomber exploded next to Pakistan interior minister, Aftab Sherpao, at a public meeting in Charsadda, near Peshawar. Sherpao escaped with perforated eardrums. But 33 others were murdered. It was the eighth suicide attack in Pakistan this year, all aimed at ministers, the army, police and hotels and airports frequented by foreigners -- the very emblems of Musharraf's pro-Western military government. A deal with the PPP would provide a political bulwark against the Taliban. It could also protect Musharraf from the turbulence of the chief justice imbroglio so that he can safely reach the shore of presidential elections in October or November this year. The PPP would not need to vote for him in the suffrage. It need only abstain. And therein lies the risk, says Rizvi. Historically, the Pakistan army has never sought cooperation with civilian politicians like Bhutto. It prefers cooption, a political façade that can "civilianise" military rule rather than genuine civilian rule that would return the army to barracks. Musharraf is cut from the same cloth, preferring what he calls "sustainable democracy" imposed by the military to the "sham democracy" delivered by elected governments. His dismissal of Chaudhry has again demonstrated the contempt with which he holds civil institutions like the judiciary. Having rode on the back of the PPP to another presidency, what would prevent him from rigging any subsequent elections against them or suspending them in the name of the threat posed by the Taliban? In such a scenario, says Rizvi, Bhutto would find herself not only removed from office but also from the opposition, a huge gain as far as Musharraf is concerned. This is why the vast majority of PPP activists are warning their leader to have no truck with "the General". She answers such compromises are necessary if there is to be a "transition to democracy" in Pakistan. They say she is being lured to the temple only for the army to have it come down upon her.
