NYT : Musharraf Said to Agree to End His Army Role

Musharraf Said to Agree to End His Army Role

By CARLOTTA GALL and SALMAN MASOOD | August 30, 2007

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Aug. 29 — The exiled former prime minister Benazir Bhutto said Wednesday that Pakistan’s president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, had agreed to resign as army chief as part of a nearly completed deal that would allow him to serve another term as president if he is re-elected and allow her to return to Pakistan to run for prime minister.

“Our understanding is that he will contest elections as a civilian,” Ms. Bhutto said in a telephone interview from London, where she has been in negotiations with the general’s emissaries. But a second central question — whether he would run for election with the sitting Parliament voting this fall, or wait until a new and more independent one is formed after elections in January, was “still under discussion,” she said.

The agreement remained a “cliffhanger,” she said. “A lot has gone right, but still there are a couple of issues to be hashed out.”

There was no immediate confirmation from General Musharraf, who has suffered a series of blows in recent weeks during his six-month struggle to retain both his military and political leadership posts. But his minister of railways, Sheik Rashid Ahmed, said at a news conference covered by Reuters: “There is no more uniform issue. It has been settled, and the president will make an announcement.”

Asked later if General Musharraf would take off his uniform before running for re-election, he said, “Maybe.”

A power-sharing deal between General Musharraf and Ms. Bhutto would have the support of the United States and European governments, who see General Musharraf as an important ally in fighting terrorism but also want to encourage moderate political forces in Pakistan to counter religious extremists.

The talks gained urgency last week after Pakistan’s Supreme Court ruled that Nawaz Sharif, the prime minister General Musharraf ousted in a 1999 coup, could return to Pakistan. Like Ms. Bhutto, he wields significant power within the country, but he is seen by the Bush administration as less friendly to its interests. He is opposed to the general continuing in power in any capacity and has vowed to oppose his re-election. Mr. Sharif could well run for prime minister, and such a rivalry could further shake up Pakistani politics.

For the United States, a power-sharing deal between General Musharraf and Ms. Bhutto would be the best outcome among several bad options. Bush administration officials want to keep General Musharraf in the presidency, because he is viewed as a crucial ally in the fight against terrorism, an American official said.

But General Musharraf’s plummeting popularity in Pakistan has left American officials worried that he could lose the election if he refuses to share power with Ms. Bhutto, or, worse, find himself overthrown in the same kind of army coup that brought him to power.

American officials also say they worry that Mr. Sharif is more critical of the United States than either Ms. Bhutto or General Musharraf is.

Still, foreign policy experts in the United States and administration officials cautioned that it remained unclear whether the power-sharing deal would be enough to stave off further political crises in Pakistan and an eventual ouster of General Musharraf.

On Wednesday, in an interview published by The Financial Times, Mr. Sharif said he would return to Pakistan within two weeks. A spokesman for Mr. Sharif, Nadir Chaudhri, reached by telephone, said Mr. Sharif would announce details of his plans at a news conference on Thursday.

Ms. Bhutto laid out the parameters of the discussions on a deal in an interview late Wednesday. She said her Pakistan People’s Party had offered the general different options, involving passing a constitutional amendment, either by the current Parliament or the next one, to resolve questions about whether he is ineligible for re-election. (According to some interpretations of his tenure in office, he has already served the maximum two consecutive terms.) She said the party’s position was that he should run for re-election after the next Parliament was seated.

Another issue still under discussion is the balance of power between the president and the Parliament, and in particular the presidential powers to dissolve Parliament. “Parliament needs to be independent, not subservient to a privy council or handmaiden of the presidency,” she said.

General Musharraf began his re-election campaign this month with an eye to a vote of national and provincial assemblies between Sept. 15 and Oct. 15. But growing opposition to the breadth of his rule — which gained momentum after he suspended the Supreme Court’s chief justice in March — has presented him with mounting difficulties. The possibility that the chief justice, reinstated in July, might rule General Musharraf’s re-election plans unconstitutional helped drive him into the talks with Ms. Bhutto.

Sheik Mansoor Ahmed, the deputy secretary general of Ms. Bhutto’s party, said: “Musharraf’s own survival also depends on her return. You see, choices for Musharraf have become very limited.”

The government officials who met with Ms. Bhutto in London on Tuesday have returned to Pakistan, and members of the Pakistan People’s Party said they were waiting for the government’s response.

The federal minister of information, Muhammad Ali Durrani, said the talks were at a “crucial stage.” A final announcement might take days, he said.

Ms. Bhutto told the independent Pakistani television channel Aja: “Eighty to 90 percent of the issues have been settled. Ten to 20 percent have yet to be decided.”

“Some matters relating to a balance of power between the Parliament and presidency are still pending,” Ms Bhutto said in the television interview.

Officially, the Bush administration is trying to keep a low profile, in part because Pakistani public opinion of President Bush is negative, and political candidates who are seen as allied with Mr. Bush — like General Musharraf and Ms. Bhutto — could suffer.

“Benazir Bhutto has been telling people at home that she has the United States on her side,” said Robert B. Oakley, a former United States ambassador to Pakistan. “Well, some people may not want the United States on their side; if there was a popularity contest in Pakistan you would have Osama bin Laden on the top and the United States on the bottom.”

The State Department stuck to its official line that the United States was not interfering in Pakistani affairs. “The primary concern for the United States in Pakistan is that there be free, credible and transparent elections there, and elections that allow the Pakistani people to have a real and full choice among all the legitimate political actors and parties in the country,” said Tom Casey, the State Department’s deputy spokesman.

General Musharraf and Ms. Bhutto have been discussing a deal for months, and they held an unannounced meeting in the United Arab Emirates on July 27, but the general continued to send out conflicting signals about his plans, as some in the governing party that backs him expressed opposition to a deal with Ms. Bhutto.

If she returns to run in the elections, her Pakistan People’s Party could win a parliamentary majority, and the governing party, which has backed General Musharraf for the past five years, is likely to suffer at the polls.

With the prospect of a political rival upstaging her, Ms. Bhutto also prepared to speed up her return to Pakistan and toughened her demands in negotiations with the leadership, Pakistan’s national daily newspapers reported.

According to the widely respected newspaper Dawn, she told the general’s team that her party’s lawmakers would resign if he tried to be re-elected while holding on to the post of army chief. If he were to resign as army chief, however, they would merely abstain and not invalidate the vote. Members of Ms. Bhutto’s party said she had been pushing for an autonomous election commission and substantive representation in the caretaker government preceding the general elections, which are scheduled for the end of this year.

Helene Cooper contributed reporting from Washington, and Eric Pfanner from London.