BB Lobbyist Pushes US To Push Musharraf

Indian Muslims Website By Arun Kumar

Lobbyists for former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto' s Pakistan People's Party (PPP) are urging top Democrats to press the Bush administration and President Pervez Musharraf to promote free and fair elections in Pakistan this year.

Under contract with the PPP, lobbyists with BKSH & Associates have made dozens of contacts with Capitol Hill, the State Department and think tanks around Washington, the Hill - a Washington journal focusing on the US Congress - reported Thursday.

Advocates have distributed tough-talking letters on Pakistan's need for renewed democracy, signed by the Democratic chairmen of the House Foreign Affairs and the Senate Foreign Relations committees, Tom Lantos and Joseph Biden.

"Our key message has not wavered: Robust US support for free and fair, internationally monitored elections in Pakistan remains critical, as does US support for the safe return and participation of opposition candidates," a BKSH director, Lisa Cotter Colangelo, was quoted as saying.

Her firm has earned more than $80,000 since January for its work on behalf of Bhutto's party, according to records filed with the Justice Department.

The letters by members of Congress pull no punches. In a March 12 letter to Musharraf signed by Senators Biden, John Kerry, Patrick Leahy and Blanche Lincoln, the lawmakers argue that unless Bhutto's party and others can campaign freely, it will be difficult to treat the 2007 elections "as a true expression of democracy".

The senators' letter urges Musharraf to arrest Taliban officials believed to be hiding out along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan. A recent National Intelligence Estimate described Pakistan as Al Qaeda's new safe haven.

Lantos and Biden also sent a letter June 1 to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice asking her to "forcefully" raise the issue of Musharraf's actions against protesters with his government and make a "public appeal" for restoring "full democracy".

House member Ileana Ros-Lehtinen also signed the letter to Rice and so far is the lone Republican to side with Democrats in their criticism of Musharraf in the correspondence.

Letters by Biden and others are part of Bhutto's larger effort in America, the Hill said. Bhutto toured congressional offices in February, while PPP officials have visited Capitol Hill during the spring and summer.

Lobbyists for the party also have distributed a scathing report on Pakistan' s voter rolls, describing the lists as full of "errors, duplications and missing voters".

Using field analyses from a variety of officials from different Pakistani political parties, the "informal review" was published by the Centre for Civic Education Pakistan, a civic organisation based in the country, and received funding from the National Endowment for Democracy. Pakistan's 2002 elections were troublesome as well.

Lobbyists have handed out several articles critical of Musharraf, including columns by Bhutto and an editorial by The New York Times, entitled "Propping up the General".

But in choosing between Musharraf and Bhutto, Capitol Hill has not come to "a consensus view", according to a congressional aide with experience in foreign affairs cited by the Hill.

"There are those who toe the line with the administration and will not admonish Musharraf, even on free and fair elections," while others "take a pragmatic view and say perhaps we should encourage this coalition of Musharraf and Bhutto", the aide said.