Will Bhutto boost Musharraf?

Pakistan's exiled former leader decides Friday whether to join the embattled president in a power-sharing deal.

By Mark Sappenfield – staff writer and Shahan Mufti – correspondent

from the October 5, 2007 edition

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Islamabad, Pakistan - Pakistani Army chief Pervez Musharraf is inching closer to securing not only a new term as president in elections Saturday, but also a much-needed dose of political legitimacy for his embattled regime.

A power-sharing deal with Benazir Bhutto, leader of Pakistan's largest political party, had not yet been fully agreed to at press time. But experts and foreign officials agree that it is now virtually inevitable, save the event of an 11th-hour court ruling that stops the elections.

The deal, if consummated, would be a triumph for the US, which seeks to keep Mr. Musharraf as an intermediary between the powerful Pakistani Army and a civilian government with at least the trappings of a true democracy.

Perhaps more important, the deal would boost hopes of resolving Pakistan's six-month political crisis peacefully and quickly, allowing the country to concentrate on fighting the Al Qaeda-fed insurgency on its western border, which is destabilizing Afghanistan and has created a new global breeding ground for terrorism.

But the deal comes at a cost to Musharraf, who has realized he has little public support. If he is to quit as Army chief, as he has promised to do under immense domestic and foreign pressure, he needs to ally himself with a popular politician like Ms. Bhutto in order to maintain a modicum of power, experts say.

Indeed, many suggest the deal marks Musharraf's continued decline, not his resurgence. Without Bhutto's support, the president's regime increasingly looks unsustainably fragile.

"While he might survive for a while, it would be very difficult to imagine him continuing for a long time," says Khalid Rahman of the Institute for Policy Studies in Islamabad.

What Bhutto wants

Bhutto, who will return from exile Oct. 18, said her final decision about the government's offer would come Friday. She wants three things from Musharraf:

• Amnesty from charges that she embezzled millions of dollars from the country.

• Guarantees that Musharraf will resign as Army chief.

• A change in the Constitution that would allow her to serve a third term as prime minister if her party wins a majority in January elections.

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