Detained opposition leader Benazir Bhutto said Thursday she hopes to form a national unity government to replace President Gen. Pervez Musharraf ahead of elections, and is contacting other opposition parties to get them on board. "I am talking to the other opposition parties to find out whether they are in a position to come together," she told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from the home in Lahore where she is under house arrest. "We need to see whether we can come up with an interim government of national consensus to whom power can be handed."Bhutto left open the question of whether she, or someone else, would lead such a government, saying it was a subject that would have to be worked out in negotiations. But she said a consensus must be reached that would ensure an orderly transition should Musharraf agree to step down.
In an Associated Press interview Wednesday, Musharraf said he expects to quit as chief of the army by the end of November, heralding a return to civilian rule. However, he rejected Western pressure to quickly end the emergency.
Bhutto made the comments shortly after a visit from Bryan Hunt, the U.S. consul general in the eastern Pakistani city. Hunt was allowed to cross the barricades and heavy police cordon surrounding the house where Bhutto has been confined since Tuesday. He emerged an hour later and said he had told Bhutto of Washington's wish for Musharraf to lift the state of emergency, quit as army chief and free opposition politicians and the media. "We need to move as rapidly as possible to have free and fair elections held on time," Hunt said.
Bhutto said Washington is concerned about a power vacuum in Pakistan, and wanted to know if she would still consider working with Musharraf. "He came to find out whether I could work with Gen. Musharraf, and I told him that it was very difficult to work with someone who instead of taking us toward democracy took us back toward military dictatorship," she said.