KARACHI, 30 November 2004 — Former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto will end her exile and lead her party to victory in the next election, her husband Asif Ali Zardari said following his release from jail.
“She is surely coming and will lead the Pakistan People’s Party in the next general election,” Zardari told AFP in an interview at his seaside Bilawal House residence in this southern port city.
“I can’t give you the date, but she will be here for the next elections,” Zardari said, insisting 2005 would be election year in Pakistan.
“Benazir will create history by becoming the premier for the third time.”
Zardari, who spent eight years in detention, was released last Monday after the Supreme Court granted him bail in the last of 17 cases of graft, murder and drug smuggling.
“Benazir has a role to play in Pakistan politics and the vote bank belongs to her,” he said.
Benazir, who governed Pakistan twice — from 1988 to 1990 and 1993 to 1996 — lives in self-imposed exile in London and Dubai.
She left Pakistan in April 1998 and was convicted in absentia of corruption and other charges which she rejects as political victimization to keep her away from the elections held in 2002. The government has said the present Parliament will complete its five-year tenure until 2007.
Zardari rejected speculation his release was linked to any deal with the government.
“I rejected all offers and preferred prison,” he said. “Democracy is our shield and we cannot compromise with the authoritarian rulers,” he said. He said his “villainous image” was painted by successive authoritarian governments to malign Benazir.
Zardari, who was arrested Nov. 4, 1996 said during custody intelligence agencies wanted “to break me through physical and mental torture in order to pressure Benazir, but they failed.”
“Sleep deprivation for hours during interrogation resulted in my spine problem,” Zardari said.
“I was asked to sit on a chair, which was not very comfortable. When I started getting sleepy they forced me not to sleep and asked all kinds of questions.”
On the possibility of accepting Gen. Pervez Musharraf as both president and the army chief, Zardari said: “Democracy and authoritarian rules don’t go together.”
“He (Musharraf) can contest fresh presidential elections, but not as a general. It goes without saying.”
Zardari expressed his confidence in bringing all political parties — from liberal to secular and progressive to religious — on one platform.
“I can be a bridge for all the political forces to agree on minimum points of democracy and supremacy of Parliament,” he said.
Zardari was first arrested in 1990 when Benazir’s political foe Nawaz Sharif of the rival Pakistan Muslim League was prime minister. He spent 28 months facing criminal and corruption charges.
As minister and senator, he was at the helm of affairs until Benazir’s second government was dismissed by President Farooq Leghari in 1996.
Analysts believe his release after numerous trials could herald political reconciliation in Pakistan. It could also ease political tensions over demands for Musharraf to relinquish his post as army chief by the year-end.
Opposition parties and democracy activists are bent on forcing Musharraf, who seized power in a bloodless coup in 1999 and has held the dual posts of president and army chief since June 2001, to shed his uniform and become a civilian president.
