Exiled former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto is all set to reiterate the Province in spite of probable arrest and also she doesn’t rule out running for the first woman of the country.
Pakistani courts under President Pervez Musharraf have convicted Bhutto and another exiled prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, whom Musharraf deposed in a bloodless coup in 1999, of various crimes, and both face arrest upon their return.
Talking about her ‘obvious’ house arrest, she says, that ‘under present legal system’, she would not be arrested. Saying further, she added,
Of course, if the regime wishes, they can make a new case against me. Nothing has been proved against me.
Bhutto and Sharif have been in talks on a joint strategy to put pressure on Musharraf’s government. Recently, both have protested against Gen Musharraf’s decision to sack the country’s chief justice, who had opposed his attempts to cling to power. The pact between them is significant since, until now, the public protests over the crisis have been led by lawyers rather than politicians.
However, he had promised to step down from the post before seeking re-election. Meanwhile, scholars are of the view that he wants to retain the control and suspend Chaudhry to prevent any legal challenge.
Gen Musharraf’s position has been further jeopardized by an apparent change of heart in the US, where diplomats and intelligence officials are disenchanted with the president’s failure to combat fully fundamentalist Muslim terrorists operating in the tribal areas in the north-west of the country who have repeatedly crossed into Afghanistan to attack British and American forces.
Miss Bhutto has called on the international community,
If democracy must be defended in Afghanistan, then democracy in Pakistan must be defended, too. It is important for the international community to stop turning a blind eye.
