Pakistan Gives Plurality to Benazir Bhutto’s Party

LARKANA, Pakistan — Benazir Bhutto scored a victory in the nation’s first democratic elections in 11 years and began to seek support for a coalition government in a bid to become the first woman to lead a Muslim nation.

“This is a great victory for democracy,” Bhutto, 35-year-old daughter of hanged Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, said at her home in Larkana, about 500 miles south of the capital of Islamabad.

Bhutto’s opposition Pakistan People’s Party secured the largest number of seats of any party or electoral alliance in the National Assembly but failed to gain an outright majority.

“I expect President Ghulam Ishaq Khan will call on the PPP to form a government,” said Bhutto.

Official results from 204 of 207 contests for National Assembly seats gave 92 to the PPP, 7 to a PPP ally, 54 to the government-backed Islamic Democratic Alliance and 40 independents and 11 to smaller parties.

Ten other seats are reserved for religious minorities, and 20 more are for women elected by the legislators.

‘Paper Tigers’ Fall

Defeated candidates included several prominent politicians from the government of the late President Zia ul-Haq, who died in a mysterious Aug. 17 plane crash. Among them were former Prime Minister Mohammad Khan Junejo, Interior Minister Naseem Aheer, National Assembly Speaker Hameed Nasir Chatta and Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi, leader of the National People’s Party, an IDA component, and who was tipped as a possible prime minister.

“All the paper tigers are falling,” said Bhutto.

Under the constitution, the president must choose a prime minister from the party he believes can command a majority in the Assembly.