NYT : Musharraf’s Aides Deny a Deal With Bhutto

Musharraf’s Aides Deny a Deal With Bhutto

By CARLOTTA GALL | August 31, 2007

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Aug. 30 — Pakistani government officials denied Thursday that the country’s president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, had agreed to resign as army chief before presidential elections, contradicting statements a day earlier by Benazir Bhutto, an exiled former prime minister.

Nawaz Sharif, a former premier, said Thursday that he would return to Pakistan on Sept. 10.

A presidential spokesman, Rashid Qureshi, said that no decision had been made in negotiations between the sides in London and that no presidential announcement was imminent. “It is an ongoing dialogue,” he said. “If there is an announcement, I will be the first to tell you.”

Ms. Bhutto, who has been in talks with aides to General Musharraf for months to work out a power-sharing deal, said Wednesday that he had agreed to a crucial concession: giving up the post of army chief of staff before standing for re-election. The same day, Pakistan’s minister of railways, Sheik Rashid Ahmed, said that the issue “had been settled” in a deal that was “80 percent done.”

But on Thursday, government officials pushed back, denying that a deal had been made and accusing Ms. Bhutto of grandstanding.

Mr. Qureshi said that General Musharraf had until Nov. 15, when his current term ends, to decide whether he would give up one of his posts, president or chief of army staff.

“He has not given a date,” Mr. Qureshi said in a telephone interview. “He wants to keep that to himself.” He said that the president would not be pressed into making any decision and that the railways minister had been speaking personally, not officially.

The minister of state for information, Tariq Azim Khan, said that the president could remain as army chief until Dec. 31, which is when a constitutional amendment allowing him to retain the dual roles expires. And he quoted General Musharraf as saying, “I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.”

The power-sharing deal under negotiation would allow Ms. Bhutto to return from self-imposed exile and run for prime minister, and would allow General Musharraf to run for another term as president. The United States supports the deal as a way to keep an ally in the presidency and shore up his domestic support.

But each side needs serious concessions from the other.

Ms. Bhutto wants corruption cases against her dropped and a ban on prime ministers running for a third term lifted. She was elected in 1988 and 1993, but both terms were cut short amid accusations of corruption.

General Musharraf, severely weakened by months of protests over his four-month suspension of the popular Supreme Court chief justice, faces challenges on the constitutionality of his running again and holding the dual posts of army chief and president.

He expects a new political challenge from the powerful former prime minister he ousted in a bloodless 1999 coup, Nawaz Sharif, who was cleared by the Supreme Court last week to return from exile. From Ms. Bhutto, the general needs support in Parliament, where her Pakistan People’s Party is strong.

But there is some strong opposition within the governing party, the Pakistan Muslim League, which backs him, to making a deal with Ms. Bhutto, because of fears that, fueled by her return, her party could make big gains in parliamentary elections.

Ms. Bhutto said Wednesday that most of the deal had been negotiated and that General Musharraf’s agreement to run as a civilian would allow her party to accept his re-election.

Another key element to a deal is his agreement to hold off his presidential bid until a new and more independent Parliament is elected at the end of the year. Under the Constitution, Parliament and provincial assemblies elect the president.

But on Thursday, state-run media reported that General Musharraf insisted that his election would be held while the current Parliament was sitting. “My election should be held between 15 September and 15 October,” he said on a weekly television program, according to a news report.

At the same time, Mr. Khan, the information minister, said the government was opposed to freeing Ms. Bhutto from corruption cases, including two convictions she is now appealing. He said the government also opposed her demand to remove the president’s right to dissolve Parliament. The measure, he said, was still needed in Pakistan, where democracy was not fully functional.

Meanwhile, government officials expressed irritation at Ms. Bhutto’s comments, in particular her warning that General Musharraf should make an announcement by the end of the month to complete the agreement.

Mr. Khan suggested that Ms. Bhutto was trying to win political points with an inflated announcement. General Musharraf “may take off the uniform before the elections or afterwards, unless Parliament allows him to continue,” Mr. Khan said. “But it is no thanks to Benazir Bhutto. She is making out she forced him to that; that is not the case.”

In a news conference in London on Thursday, Mr. Sharif, now another likely candidate for prime minister, said that he would return to Pakistan on Sept. 10 to prepare for the elections. Mr. Sharif is opposed to General Musharraf’s continued rule in any form and described Ms. Bhutto’s efforts to win concessions from the military ruler as “too little, too late.”

He said he would return with his brother to the capital, Islamabad, and then make the four-hour drive to his hometown, Lahore. Similar well-publicized road trips taken by the chief justice during his suspension became marathon cavalcades, with tens of thousands of supporters cheering him along his route.