ISLAMABAD, 31 October — Exiled Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) chief Benazir Bhutto has asked party leaders not to make any contact with the military regime over formation of a government.
The diktat came three days after PPP leader Makhdoom Amin Fahim, Benazir’s second in command and a prime ministerial hopeful, met President Pervez Musharraf here, triggering countrywide speculation.
Though both the military regime and Fahim described the meeting as accidental, many in the PPP believe otherwise.
Analysts are adding great significance to the meeting and are not dismissing it as an ordinary event. They also refused to buy the theory that the meeting was an accidental one.
Analysts believe the military rulers are trying to lure the PPP into the treasury benches to keep the six-party religious alliance, Muttaheda Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), from coming to power.
The October polls in Pakistan threw up a fractured verdict, and most parties are busy trying to muster the support of other groups to stake a claim to forming a government.
But a PPP leader quoted Benazir as warning Fahim and others not to make any contact with government officials.
"Even accidental meetings will not be tolerated," the former prime minister said. The PPP leader said that Benazir who is in Washington issued the warning on telephone during a PPP leaders’ meeting in Karachi late Tuesday.
Benazir, who lives in self-exile in London and Dubai, is said to have asked Fahim not to lay himself and the party open to what could be politically damaging interpretations.
At a meeting with Pakistani correspondents in New York Monday she disclosed that the military regime had been approaching some top PPP leaders in a futile attempt to undermine the unity of the party.
So far, the PPP has suffered repeated setbacks in its efforts to patch up with the Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid-e-Azam (PML-Q), which polled the maximum votes in the elections, and the Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi-led National Alliance.
PPP hard-liners, led by former Sen. Raza Rabbani, have torpedoed all such efforts, party sources say. Benazir, who was disqualified from contesting the Pakistan polls, has reportedly taken a strong stand herself.
