Pak ex-PM warns Bhutto on deal with Musharraf

FE Team | Published: August 18, 2007 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00

ISLAMABAD, Aug 17 (Reuters): Pakistan's exiled former prime minister Nawaz Sharif has warned another former prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, against cutting a deal with embattled President Pervez Musharraf, saying it would dent her credibility.
Musharraf, who is facing a deepening political crisis as he prepares to seek a second term in office, met Bhutto in Abu Dhabi last month in an effort to forge a power-sharing deal.
But Sharif, ousted by Musharraf in a military coup in 1999, described the meeting as a setback and urged Bhutto to break off contacts with Musharraf.
"Musharraf is a drowning man at this stage, he has no options left. I hate to say this but I think he is like a sinking ship," Sharif said in an interview with India's NDTV news channel aired Thursday. "Anybody who cuts a deal with Musharraf at this stage would damage his own credibility and I don't want to damage my credibility," he said in the interview conducted in Dubai.
Analysts say US ally Musharraf, who is also army chief, is at his weakest since he seized power.
He has seen his popularity plummet since he tried to fire the country's chief justice in March and suffered a major blow to his authority when the Supreme Court reinstated the judge last month.He is also facing a wave of Islamist militant attacks.
A deal with Bhutto, whose Pakistan People's Party is generally seen as the country's most popular party, would broaden Musharraf's base of support, analysts say. Bhutto and Sharif were both elected twice and dismissed twice during the 1980s and 1990s.
Once bitter rivals, they joined forces in a multi-party opposition coalition -- the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy -- to press for the end of military rule.
But the alliance has appeared to wither since Bhutto established contacts with the government. Sharif has joined another opposition alliance, the recently formed All Parties Democratic Movement, which does not include Bhutto's party.