On Friday, the People’s Party will resume formal campaigning as the forty day mourning period of Benazir Bhutto’s death comes to an end. Bhutto’s book, “Reconciliation,” will be released on February 12, though critical excerpts have already been published in the Sunday Times. The publication timing serves to project the party’s outreach outside of Pakistan while also having a trickle down effect in Pakistan. An important goal of the book is to frame Bhutto’s legacy as that of a Muslim democrat and her husband and son as its inheritors. Toward this, the book will contain a copy of her will, which was released to the public today in a press conference.

Inside Pakistan, the People’s Party will leverage three “Benazirs” for public mobilization: Benazir the icon, Benazir the democrat, and Benazir the pro-poor politician. Asif Zardari, Benazir’s widower, will likely run for the National Assembly in a by-election and, if all things go well, assume the premiership from a placeholder. He’s set to lead the party’s campaigning in Punjab, though he’s not running on his own muddied reputation; Zardari presents himself as selfless, a vessel, a Bhutto by default.

Nawaz Sharif’s Muslim League party has been back on the campaign trail since early January. Sharif’s campaigning refashions his legacy to make a marked contrast with the Pakistan of present under Musharraf. The essential theme is “this is not the Pakistan I left.” Sharif speaks of a Pakistan whose “self-respect” and “sovereignty” have been violated. Musharraf bows down to the U.S. after a single call from Condi, he says. In contrast, Sharif claims that–despite a number of calls from the Clinton White House and an offering of a large aid package–he conceded to the popular will in Pakistan and topped India by one with a test of six nuclear devices. Musharraf, says Sharif, is “blindly toeing the US policies which has pushed the country into worst crisis.”

The United States, however, plays a secondary role in Sharif’s campaign. He points to many economic challenges in the country: inflation, the shortage of major staples, and the rising gap between the rich and poor. Sharif claims to have put Pakistan on the path toward becoming an “Asian tiger” and “welfare state” and will resume this project if re-elected. He also pledged to restore the deposed judiciary if and when in power.

Returning to the People’s Party, it’s unclear as to what role the United States will play in its campaign. In the 1980s, Benazir tempered anti-U.S. rhetoric from her party, despite the fact that many of her partymembers saw Washington as (at the very least) having enabled her father’s execution.

Few, if any, People’s Party officials speak in favor of Washington on Pakistani talk shows. They are not suicidal. In fact, a senior People’s Party official recently claimed that Benazir Bhutto had changed her rhetoric vis-a-vis A.Q Khan and FATA after returning to Pakistan; the insinuation, made more directly elsewhere, is that this was not differentiated messaging, but a realization that she perhaps had erred. Others, not necessarily People’s Party figures, have suggested that Bhutto was ‘punished’ by the U.S. for this subsequent change; she had even allegedly made positive contact with Baitullah Mehsud, Hamid Gul, and A.Q. Khan.

This chatter demonstrates the widespread suspicion against the United States; associating with it is a self-inflicted political beheading. Even members of Musharraf’s faction of the Muslim League point to foreign conspiracies against the country–vague references that seemingly can include the U.S. as much as India. And while the People’s Party won’t aggressively take on the U.S. in the elections, it will do so indirectly as it attributes Pakistan’s security crises to the inability of popular will to make its way through legitimately elected decision makers. The message is that Musharraf is fighting an American, not a Pakistani war.

The campaign trails will remain somewhat volatile and mine-filled. On Monday, a suicide attack in Rawalpindi killed 10 military physicians. Also, an attempted suicide attack against Maulana Fazlur Rahman was reportedly thwarted. Perhaps a week or so ago, Pakistani security forces also reportedly prevented a militant operation against Nawaz Sharif. Reconciliation talks between the Sharif and Musharraf camps seem to continue. Nawaz was in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia on Sunday at the same time as Interim PM Muhammad Mian Soomro and Punjab Governor Khalid Maqbool.

And so with two weeks left to go in Pakistan’s elections, the themes and talking points are set, but all else remains in play.