Benazir close to striking deal with Musharraf

Karachi: Former prime minister Benazir Bhutto has reinforced views she is close to entering a deal with President Pervez Musharraf ahead of the general elections due later this year or early next year by refusing to attend an opposition conference.

"Benazir Bhutto will not be there and we have informed the PML-N (Pakistan Muslim League- Nawaz) about this," said Farhatullah Babar, spokesman for Benazir's Pakistan People's Party.

"We took this decision some time back because of the timing of the moot as well as a number of other reasons," Babar said.

He said Benazir, who lives in exile, will send her party representatives to a two-day conference in London on March 24-25, being organised by Sharif's PML party, to chalk out an anti-Musharraf campaign in the lead up to the elections.

Benazir's decision, according to Babar, was based on a number of reasons, including her party's "multi-layered reservations" on the presence of the Islamic opposition alliance, Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), in the conference.

"The MMA is not an opposition party, it is the party of coalition government in Balochistan [province] so it should not be there," said Babar. MMA has also strengthened Musharraf by supporting the 17th amendment in the constitution."

Benazir, and another exiled former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, once bitter rivals, formed the multi-party Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy after Musharraf seized power in 1999 in a bloodless coup.

As part of their alliance, both politicians signed a "Charter of Democracy" last year binding them to struggle against Musharraf's military regime and not communicate with it.