KARACHI, 1 November 2007 — After hearing rumors that the government was contemplating to impose a state of emergency, Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto canceled plans to travel abroad yesterday.
The PPP chairperson, who was targeted by suicide bombers when she returned to Pakistan on Oct. 18 after eight years in exile, had been preparing to go to Dubai to visit her husband and three children.
She told reporters late Wednesday that senior party officials advised postponement of her trip so they could discuss the current situation and also the rumors that President Gen. Pervez Musharraf may be preparing to impose a state of emergency.
She also expressed fears that rigging of the next general election could take place. She told a crowded press conference that PPP workers were being arrested by the Shaukat Aziz government in Punjab and Sindh.
She said the Musharraf administration was attempting to distance itself from the National Reconciliation Ordinance and if this policy continues, she said that the PPP reserves the right to back out from the deal. She said, “President Musharraf must respect the Supreme Court verdicts in two cases — the validity of his presidential candidature and secondly the manhandling of chief justice on March 13.”
Supreme Court Judge Rana Bhagwan Das is expected to deliver a judgment today on this case and many observers feel that Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz could be indicted in the cases of ‘manhandling of chief justice and the deportation of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Sept.10.
