KARACHI, 31 January 2006 — Former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto said she plans to return to Pakistan from her self-imposed exile in time for the next elections in 2007, even if it means risking arrest.

‘’I believe that I must go back to help Pakistan’s democratization process before the next general election,’’ Benazir, who heads the Pakistan Peoples Party, the biggest of Pakistan’s opposition groups, said yesterday on CNN’s ‘’Late Edition’’ program.

Saying that she doesn’t want the only election choices to be between Musharraf’s military-led government or Islamic hard-liners, the former prime minister said she has to restore democracy in Pakistan. ‘’I welcome President Bush’s firm commitment to promoting freedom, and I believe Pakistan should not be an exception,’’ she said.

Benazir said that, while she thinks it’s a possibility that she’ll be arrested if she returns to Pakistan, she believes in the causes of democracy and that the best way to fight terrorism is to promote democracy.

She was the first woman prime minister in Pakistan and served two terms, from 1988 to 1990 and from 1993 to 1996. Both the times she hounded out of power corruption charges. She has been living in exile since 1998 in London and Dubai. On the advice of the Pakistan government Interpol has issued notices to detain Benazir and her husband because they failed to appear in court.

Benazir, who is in Washington, yesterday said the move was politically motivated and that president Pervez Musharraf ‘’wanted to embarrass me on a visit to Washington.’’

She also said Musharraf was not doing enough due to lack of broad political support. In the search for Al-Qaeda and Taleban members, including Osama Bin Laden.

“The area is difficult, but one can make a strategy to gain control,” she said adding “may be doing the best he can, but he’s a military leader” and therefore doesn’t have the popular support a political leader would have, she said.

Demolition of Bhutto Memorial Flayed

The PPP has condemned the Punjab government for demolishing the memorial dedicated to former Premier Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in the old Rawalpindi Jail.

The party will establish protest camps at the district headquarters today to condemn a “mud-slinging and character assassination drive” launched by the government and the state-controlled media, PPP leader Habibullah Shakir said in Karachi.