The former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has returned from self-exile. Deputy Foreign Editor Anthony Murnane looks at how she is returning to a country in the grip of a political crisis as the Supreme Court prepares to decide on the eligibility of President Pervez Musharraf to remain in office for another term.
Benazir Bhutto has always cut a dash on the world stage. Instantly recognisable in her trademark headscarf, she was twice elected Prime Minister of Pakistan.
Politics is in her blood. Her father, Zulfika Ali Bhutto, was prime minister in the 1970s. He was executed in 1979, charged with murder by General Zia ul-Haq following a military coup two years earlier.
Educated in top American and English colleges, Ms Bhutto was imprisoned around this time, for five years all. She emerged a highly politicised activist, running the Pakistan People’s Party from a base in London.
There was a triumphant return to the military-led state in 1986 and she took the party into government for the first time between 1988 and 1990. A woman prime minister in an Islamic country aged just 35, she was hailed as a modern symbol of a democratic Pakistan.
After her second term in office between 1993 and 1996 she was dogged by charges of corruption. Ms Bhutto has denied claims that she and her husband, Asif Zardafi, were complicit in stealing millions of dollars from the state.
She has spent the last eight years in self-imposed exile outside Pakistan, touring the world lecture circuit and meeting international government officials. There have also been frequent television appearances on both sides of the Atlantic. But questions remain over her financial situation.
She is returning to Pakistan after striking a deal with President Pervez Musharraf which would see the corruption charges against her dropped. He has been leading Pakistan since overthrowing the government of Nawaz Sharif in a coup in 1999. 
Efforts by Mr Sharif (right) to return to Pakistan failed last month. On landing at Islamabad he was charged with money-laundering, and put on a plane to Saudi Arabia. Ms Bhutto seems to have done her homework. If her deal with Musharraf comes off she will be able to contest parliamentary elections in the coming months.
But Musharraf (below) is a man well used to power. After all, he has headed a military government for the past eight years. How he will work with Ms Bhutto if she is elected Prime Minister remains uncertain.
The General - who has pledged to step down from the Army - was re-elected president just a few weeks ago. He had asked Ms Bhutto not to return to Pakistan until the Supreme Court ruled on his eligibility for another term in office.
Ms Bhutto’s hopes also depend on her country’s top judges. They must decide on the legality of the decision to drop corruption charges against her.
Another law change will be needed if Bhutto is to be allowed stand for a third term in office. These are all critical decisions still to be made which will shape the immediate future of Pakistan, and its governance.
- Anthony Murnane
