awaited charge sheet against President Pervez Musharraf may never become public in case he resigns early as some mediators are trying for a face-saving departure, said a news report. The go-betweens are in touch with both sides – Musharraf and the ruling coalition – in order to strike a deal where the president would voluntarily quit his office while the other side would withhold its charge sheet, the report appearing in the leading English language daily The News said. Otherwise, a source said, the president would only quit after replying to the charge-sheet once it was formally issued. Without identifying the mediators, the source said the meetings of former British high commissioner Mark Lyall Grant with the president as well as different players of the government were also meaningful. Grant is presently serving in the British Foreign Office. As he was a part of the London-Washington effort to strike a deal between Benazir Bhutto and Musharraf, he knew fairly well the quid pro quo to the controversial National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) issued last year. The source said that only an assurance regarding the non-issuance of the charge-sheet would lead to the early departure of Musharraf, who has been advised by many that he should not leave without responding to the charge-sheet. Otherwise, the president was warned that the charge-sheet would be deemed proven against him. Both the president and his supporters have read the writing on the wall but Musharraf does not want to miss the chance of responding to the government's charge-sheet, which has been delayed. There is no clear word from the government as to when it would be made public. The source said the president may resign after making a speech and declaring that he was calling it a day in the greater national interest. But, the source added, it would not be acceptable to Musharraf that after his departure, the government issued the charge-sheet without giving him the chance to defend himself. The source said that the president was advised that in such a situation, he would be perceived as a coward, who had fled to save his skin. If the go-between fails to strike a deal between the two sides, the president would wait for the formal issuance of the charge-sheet to which he would like to reply. While referring to the recent statement of Asif Zardari in which he had accused the president of siphoning off $700m, the source said that Zardari later ate a humble pie and said that he was wrongly quoted by a British newspaper. __
