Pakistan's Musharraf, Rival Discuss Sharing Power

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, July 28 -- Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, and former prime minister Benazir Bhutto appeared to draw closer to an improbable alliance Saturday, with a top Musharraf adviser confirming that the two had met and pronouncing the exchange "very successful."

The Pakistani news media reported the meeting Friday, but the government denied it at the time. On Saturday, however, federal minister Sheikh Rashid said the usually bitter rivals had held discussions in the United Arab Emirates aimed at creating a power-sharing arrangement. Representatives for Bhutto, who has been living in exile since 1999 and leads the country's largest opposition party, would not confirm the meeting for the record but also would not deny it.

Musharraf has been struggling in recent months with vigorous challenges to his eight-year rule. They have come both from Islamic extremists waging a violent insurgency as well as from moderate forces looking to oust the president and end military rule through upcoming elections.

With his popularity in decline, Musharraf badly needs allies. Bhutto needs a way back into the country without facing criminal charges relating to alleged corruption. She has said she wants to return for a third term as prime minister, even though that is now barred by the Pakistani constitution.

While the two leaders have vastly different visions for Pakistan, both are regarded as moderates. An alliance would probably be welcomed by the United States and other Western powers that are hoping that moderate forces can unite to battle rising militancy in Pakistan.

"The country is in a serious crisis," Rashid said in an interview on Pakistan's Dawn News television station. "So we have to move fast, and we have to move to national consensus."

Negotiations have been reported for months, but a face-to-face meeting indicates they have reached an advanced stage.

The pace of the talks may have been hastened by a court ruling this month that reinstated Pakistan's chief justice, whom Musharraf had tried to oust. The court is expected to hear challenges to Musharraf's plans for staying in office, which had included getting elected to a new term by a parliament set to expire, and keeping his job as army chief. Bhutto has said she will not consider a deal unless Musharraf agrees to shed his uniform, and that is believed to be a sticking point in the negotiations.

The talks carry considerable risk for both leaders. Each heads a party whose members may revolt at the prospect of an agreement, and it is unclear how a Musharraf-Bhutto government would function given the bad blood between them.

State Information Minister Tariq Azim Khan said Saturday that any arrangement would have to be approved by the ruling party, which Musharraf and his allies created after he took power in 1999. Many party leaders deeply mistrust Bhutto.

"Obviously, there's a lot of resentment within the ruling party," Khan said.

A spokesman for an anti-Musharraf party that had previously been aligned with Bhutto ridiculed her Saturday for giving Musharraf a potential way out of his predicament.

"She has betrayed the cause of democracy," said Ahsan Iqbal, information secretary for the Pakistan Muslim League, whose leader, former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, is also in exile. "Musharraf has lost all legitimacy, and he must resign."

A Bhutto spokesman said negotiations between the two camps continue. "Both sides are still examining how to move forward," Wajid Shamsul Hasan said. "There is hope still, but time is running out."

Bhutto and Musharraf have together been the signature forces in Pakistani politics over the past two decades. They share an ill-disguised contempt for one another and seem to relish presenting themselves as everything the other is not.

Bhutto, who comes from a wealthy family and graduated from Radcliffe and Oxford, served two terms as prime minister in the late 1980s and '90s. As leader of the left-leaning Pakistan People's Party for more than a quarter-century, she has railed against the dangers of military rule. Her father, who was also prime minister, was executed by a military regime, and she frequently refers to Musharraf as a "military dictator."

Musharraf is a lifelong army man, who rose from a middle-class background to lead Pakistan's most influential institution. While he was commanding the army in 1999, the military staged a coup, and Musharraf took power. He has called Bhutto's tenure leading the country "sham democracy" and accused her of rampant corruption.