She Wants Key Job Now, Bhutto Tells Pakistan Leaders

Charging that the losers of last week’s election are waging a campaign of “intimidation, blackmail and coercion” to deny her Pakistan’s top elected post, opposition leader Benazir Bhutto said Wednesday that she has appealed personally to the nation’s president and its powerful military chief to install her immediately as prime minister.

In an hourlong press conference here in the capital, Bhutto, 35, said the delay in naming her to the post “is causing a sour note and creating an impression that an attempt is being made to subvert the verdict of the people.”

Bhutto stressed, however, that both leaders assured her that her election mandate will be respected, and she added that any attempt to subvert her party’s dramatic victory probably will not succeed.

One week ago, Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party emerged as the nation’s largest in elections for the national legislature, putting her in a strong position to become the first woman prime minister in Pakistan’s history.

Tuesday night, Bhutto met for the first time with President Ghulam Ishaq Khan and the armed forces chief of staff, Gen. Mirza Aslam Beg--both of them close allies of the late military ruler, Gen. Zia ul-Haq, who overthrew Bhutto’s father 11 years ago. The meetings represented the first official trip into the halls of Pakistani power for a woman who spent most of the past decade in prison, house arrest or exile.

Describing the meetings, Bhutto said: “I think the message from their side was not to be concerned. But the message on my side was that the delay was giving rise to uncertainty.

“Despite the assurances,” she added, “I feel an attempt has been made to subvert the verdict of the people.”

Still, most senior Pakistani officials and independent analysts maintain that President Ishaq Khan eventually will nominate Bhutto to be prime minister. They said the delay in the announcement is principally a result of Pakistan’s cumbersome constitution, which in fact could delay her nomination for an additional week or so, until the newly elected National Assembly gathers for its first session.

Explains His Thinking

“The president’s thinking is, ‘Let’s carry forward this experiment to its logical conclusion . . . and transfer power to the party in the majority,’ ” Justice Minister Wasim Sajjad said in an interview with The Times. “Whoever gets the majority, he (Ishaq Khan) will give it to them.”

But Sajjad also stressed that the 73-year-old president, who is known to be a strict adherent to the constitution, wants to be certain that Bhutto, if nominated, can form a majority in the legislature. Her People’s Party fell about 10 seats short of an absolute majority in the election.

At her press conference, Bhutto said she explained to Ishaq Khan during their two-hour meeting the “mathematical impossibility” that her opponents, a nine-party alliance closely identified with Zia, could form a majority.

Presses Party Position

Bhutto said she told the president many times: “It is the constitutional, democratic, moral and legal right for the Pakistan People’s Party to be called upon to form the new government, and, while he (the president) may have been convinced that nothing will be done in the intervening period to subvert the verdict of the people . . . our position was attempts would still be made.”

Asked whether she would mobilize her nationwide grass-roots organization into street protests if the nomination delay drags on, Bhutto maintained, “Our efforts will be for peaceful transition.”

Specifically, Bhutto charged that the Islamic Democratic Alliance, which is headed by her bitter foe, Mian Nawaz Sharif, is using its position as the party in power to threaten and bribe elected Assembly members to support the Alliance.

“What upsets us is the money of the people of Pakistan, the official machinery, the machinery of transport are all being used for this policy of coercion and blackmail,” she charged, without offering any specific proof.

Sharif, reporting at a Tuesday night press conference on his own meeting with Ishaq Khan, which immediately followed Bhutto’s, denied the charge. He continued to insist that his alliance can form a majority through the support of independents and small parties outside the alliance.

“I have requested that the president remain neutral in the political leaders’ attempts at coalition-making,” Sharif said. “He should not become a party to creating a contrived majority by conceding to . . . the appointment of a prime minister.”

Bhutto said several times that she believes that the Alliance’s principal goal in encouraging the delay was simply to ensure that Sharif, whose party won 54 National Assembly seats to the People’s Party’s 94, will remain in power at the provincial level, using the time to bolster his position as head of Punjab, the country’s most populous and prosperous province.

Bhutto, who is known to be somewhat mistrusted by elements in the 670,000-man armed forces, also charged that Sharif and his party leaders are trying to subvert her position with the military, which has now taken a staunch, pro-democracy stand after running Pakistan for more than half its 41-year history.