London: Former Pakistan prime minister Benazir Bhutto has claimed that she has reached a 'verbal' agreement with deposed premier Nawaz Sharif on a power-sharing arrangement in which she would have the first chance at running the country for five years if elected to power.
Bhutto, the leader of Pakistan People's Party (PPP), said in an interview with the Financial Times, that she and Sharif had struck the bargain so that they could present a common front in their battle to reassert civilian control over the Army.
Exiled Sharif, the chief of Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N), and Bhutto had earlier in May last year signed the Charter of Democracy — a 36-point common programme to 'save the motherland from the clutches of military dictatorship'.
"Both of us are committed to reforming the military establishment. So, I hope we will have a consensus within Parliament on the reforms that we are going to bring and that the military would not be able to play one of us off against the other," self-exiled Bhutto said.
"Nawaz Sharif and I agree. Nawaz says, 'You should be the prime minister for the first five-year term', and after that five-year term, he wants to run. So I hope that we can move forward. That's a verbal discussion between us, but that is what he has said to me."
But Iqbal Zafar Jhagra, the Secretary-General of the PML-N, denied there was any such offer from Sharif. "The people will decide in fair elections who forms the government," he told the newspaper.
"If she forms the government, Sharif has said we will respect her mandate, or that of anyone else elected by the people. This is a new development in Pakistani politics," he said. The general election in Pakistan is due later this year or early next year.
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