Her Eye on the Prize.(Benazir Bhutto)(Brief Article)

Former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has been knocked down many times. Dictator Mohammad Zia ul-Haq hanged her father in 1979 and imprisoned her after her return from exile in 1986. She has been elected prime minister twice and twice been pushed out by the military. For the past six years her husband has sat in a Pakistani jail for corruption charges he denies. Avoiding similar charges, Bhutto has lived in exile--dividing her time between London and Dubai--since 1997. Now Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf is dead-set on blocking her return to power. He recently issued a package of executive orders and constitutional amendments largely aimed at preventing her from becoming prime minister for a third time. But Bhutto, 49, is still on her feet. She's vowing to make a political comeback despite the long odds. "I am returning home to contest the October elections," she told NEWSWEEK recently. "No one can stop me."

Bhutto can't be written off. She is a talented, hands-on leader who knows how to mobilize the political machinery--even at great distances. From her three-bedroom apartment in central London's tony Queensgate, Bhutto plots her return. She meets a nonstop stream of visitors, with party officials and retired Pakistani military officers among their ranks. She spends countless hours on the phone and at her Dell desktop computer communicating with party stalwarts all over Pakistan. Her aides say she is in touch by e-mail with some 5,000 party workers every week. All that hard work has paid off. Despite her long absence, her Pakistan People's Party remains the best-organized political force in Pakistan. "She's done a masterful job in holding the party together long distance," says Samina Ahmed, director of the International Crisis Group in Islamabad. "In a free and fair election the PPP still stands a good chance of winning a simple majority."

Not if Musharraf can help it. But then again, Bhutto keeps dodging his punches. Last week her advisers feared the party would be disqualified because of one of Musharraf's new, so-called Benazir-specific election laws. As the deadline for party registration approached, Bhutto's inner court huddled for a three-hour conference call that ran until 5 in the morning Pakistan time. In the end, they decided that Bhutto would return to Pakistan before the elections, most likely in September on a commercial flight to Lahore, though the exact date of her arrival has not been fixed. They also agreed to form a new party, called the Pakistan People's Party ...