Former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto said on Tuesday that her country could return to democracy sooner than expected and urged the world to demand that the military regime hold early elections. The coup leader, Gen. (Pervez) Musharraf started out with good declared intentions, Bhutto acknowledged as she met with sympathisers in a Brussels hotel. But since then, Pakistan has drifted into a sea of violence and conflict. Whilst the major parties have been sidelined and forced into exile, She told the Associated Press.
Bhutto said that the current regime in Islamabad has failed to pull the country out of economic crisis.
Bhutto, who became the first woman leader of a modern Muslim nation when she won office in 1988, urged the European Union to push for elections. She called on the EU to back the recently formed the so-called grand democratic alliance made up of 17 political parties, including her Pakistani People's Party.
Bhutto, who is in Brussels to meet the European Parliament members and to speak at an international women's conference, has lobbied hard over the past months to get western leaders to start reinvesting in Pakistan and forgive its foreign debt, once a democratic government retakes power.
Bureau Report