PAKISTAN:Benazir Bhutto, Pakistan's former prime minister, said yesterday that talks on a powersharing agreement with Gen Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's military ruler, had broken down.
Speaking in London, the Pakistan People's Party leader cited Gen Musharraf's failure to deliver on promises for a return to full democracy as the reason for the failure of the talks.
"The People's Party is not in the business of saving military dictatorships. We want to save democracy," she said in her first public comments since Tuesday when Pakistani ministers claimed that an agreement was imminent.
The officials had suggested that Gen Musharraf was close to announcing an amnesty for all politicians who had been charged, but not convicted, between 1985 and 1999. That period would have covered both Ms Bhutto's stints as prime minister, which ended in 1990 and 1996 when her governments were caught up in corruption charges.
Ms Bhutto met party chiefs yesterday to decide whether to boycott this Saturday's presidential elections, which Gen Musharraf is likely to win.
She said the party would make a decision within the next two days on whether to "resign from the assemblies in protest at the inability of the Musharraf government to move towards the restoration of democracy in Pakistan".
One PPP adviser said Ms Bhutto believed that by playing up the possibility of an agreement between Gen Musharraf and the PPP, the government had been "essentially telling all of its other opponents that the regime is becoming stronger with a partnership with Benazir Bhutto".
One contentious issue has been Gen Musharraf's refusal to change the Pakistani law that bars prime ministers who have served twice from serving a third time - a law that in its present form would prevent Ms Bhutto from again serving as prime minister.
Gen Musharraf's decision to contest while serving as chief of Pakistan's powerful army, rather than concede to opposition demands and retire from the military before the contest, has also proved controversial.
On Tuesday members of another opposition alliance, the APDM (All Parties Democratic Movement) resigned from the federal parliament and its four provincial legislatures in protest against Gen Musharraf's bid to be re-elected.