By IANS
Islamabad : Former Pakistan prime minister Benazir Bhutto ended eight long years of exile Thursday and flew back home for a triumphant welcome by tens of thousands of cheering supporters.
“I believe in miracles, my return home is a miracle,” Bhutto, 54, declared with tears in her eyes as the Emirates plane brought her to the port city of Karachi from Dubai.
As she stepped out of the aircraft, the emotions showed on Bhutto’s face. Dressed in a green kameez, one of the colours of her Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), with a white chador, she appeared to break down for a moment.
One glance at the crowds, and Bhutto covered her face with her hands, as if to wipe her tears, and then looked up in a sign of divine thanksgiving.
The mass of PPP supporters, thousands of whom had reached the airport on motorcycles, cars, trucks and buses, many seated on rooftops, gave their leader a rapturous welcome.
Giant sized PPP flags and colourful portraits of Bhutto – who went into self-imposed exile in 1999 after being charged with corruption along with her husband – adorned all major streets of Karachi, Pakistan’s biggest city.
Crowds broke into a run near the airport, almost overwhelming an estimated 35,000 security personnel, as Bhutto came out amid thunderous slogans hailing a woman who has ruled Pakistan on two occasions.
Many were dressed in red, black and green – the colours of PPP. Thousands danced on the streets, visibly overjoyed.
“(I am) excited and overwhelmed,” she told journalists who accompanied her on the flight.
Bhutto, who has entered into a power sharing deal with the increasingly unpopular President Pervez Musharraf that could catapult her to power in general elections due in January, is to visit the mausoleum of Pakistan’s founder Mohammed Ali Jinnah. She is to address her supporters there.
Security for Bhutto is high following threats by pro-Taliban clerics to kill her.
Information Minister Tariq Azim gave a spin to her return: “She is welcome as any other citizen of Pakistan. There is no power sharing deal with her. We want to wipe the slate clean and start afresh.”
Bhutto became one of the first democratically elected female prime ministers in an Islamic country in 1988. Her regime collapsed in 1990.
She again became prime minister in 1993 and ruled for three years. On both occasions, her governance was accompanied by charges of corruption against her and her husband Asif Zardari.
Bhutto left Pakistan in 1999 to live abroad shortly after her conviction by the Supreme Court.
Pakistan would have to go for a constitutional amendment if she were to seek a third term as prime minister.
Railway Minister Sheikh Rashid confirmed that: “It is not us who are stopping her from contesting. It is the constitution of Pakistan.”