Benazir Bhutto claims to have secured a “verbal” agreement from her principal rival for the prime ministership of Pakistan to a power-sharing arrangement that would see her have first crack at running the country for five years.

In an interview with the Financial Times, Mrs Bhutto said that she and Nawaz Sharif, the exiled leader of the Pakistan Muslim League (N), had struck the bargain so that they could present a common front in their battle to reassert civilian control over the army.