In February the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) hired BKSH & Associates [3], Burson-Marsteller [4] and the polling company Penn, Schoen and Berland Associates [5], to promote the need for "free, open and transparent elections in Pakistan in 2007." The contract, which runs to June 2007, could be worth as much as $250,000. Pakistan's current Prime Minister, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, came to power in 1999 by a military coup while the leader of the PPP, Benazir Bhutto, is living in exile. Kevin Bogardus reports that the first stage of the campaign involves the development of op-eds and white papers. This is to be followed by a "broad public affairs campaign" which includes enlisting "third-party supporters [6]," including former U.S. government officials and think tanks [7]. In the final stage, the campaign hopes to organize meetings for Bhutto with the editorial boards of the New York Times [8] and the Washington Post [9] and also "target top journalists" such as the Times columnist Thomas Friedman [10].