Death raises spectre of instability
Saturday, 29 December 2007
Farhan Bokhari in Karachi and Jo Johnson in London , FT Syndication Service
The body of Benazir Bhutto, leader of one of Pakistan's main opposition parties, was flown to Larkana, the Bhutto ancestral home, for burial on Friday, a day after she was assassinated by a suicide bomber, throwing the nuclear-armed country into turmoil in the run-up to next month's general election.
As thousands of mourners thronged to her ancestral home ahead of her burial in her family graveyard alongside her father, violence continued to erupt.
Unidentified assailants gunned down a policeman and wounded three in Karachi, and security forces in Sindh, Ms Bhuttos's home province, were given orders to shoot violent protesters on sight.
Police opened fire on protesters in the southern city of Hyderabad, wounding five, and about 4,000 Bhutto party supporters rioted in the northwestern city of Peshawar. A blast in the troubled northwest Swat Valley killed at least three people, including a ruling party election candidate.
Police in Indian-controlled Kashmir fired tear gas at hundreds of stone-throwing demonstrators, and were deployed around the main mosque area of Srinagar, the capital, as authorities feared more protests after Friday prayers.
Mohammad Mian Soomro, the caretake prime minister, on Friday said Pakistan has not decided if there will be any change in plans to hold a general election on January 8. "Nothing yet. Elections stand as they were announced," he told reporters.
S&P, the ratings agency, said Pakistan's credit rating could be lowered if violence and political turmoil escalate, and if the elections is postponed.
The government said it was investigating reports that al-Qaeda had claimed responsibility for Ms Bhutto's assassination. The interior ministry said it was 'unaware' of any such link, but that there was 'every possibility' she had been on an al-Qaeda hit list.
The popular but divisive politician was the first elected female leader of a Muslim state and served as Pakistan's prime minister twice between 1988 and 1996. She sustained fatal injuries as she left an election rally in the Pakistani city of Rawalpindi.
Within hours of her death, former prime minister Nawaz Sharif said his party, the Pakistan Muslim League, would boycott the elections in honour of Ms Bhutto, leader of the Pakistan People's party, and demanded that Pervez Musharraf step down as the nation's president.
Ms Bhutto's party said it would observe a 40-day period of mourning.
Western diplomats warned that the assassination would be a setback to the Bush administration's hopes of bringing about "a transition to democracy" in Pakistan.
Ms Bhutto's return to Pakistan in October from eight years of exile was widely seen to have taken place with the support of the US administration, which was keen to promote a moderate politician who could extend a lifeline to Mr Musharraf and buttress the important US ally's slender base of domestic political support.
"This is an extremely destabilising development for the future of Pakistan," warned Hasan Askari Rizvi, a commentator on security affairs.
Jo Johnson further adds: The assassination of Benazir Bhutto, less than two weeks before a fraught general election, has dashed western hopes for a peaceful transition to democracy in Pakistan. The murder of the 54-year-old former prime minister, the first woman elected to lead a post-colonial Muslim state, leaves the country's largest political party without a leader and deprives the US of its best hope of providing a civilian façade to the unpopular rule of President Pervez Musharraf.
Pakistan's immediate future, however, depends on the popular reaction to the assassination over the course of the next few days. If the army is blamed for Ms Bhutto's death or is seen as somehow having failed to take adequate measures to protect her, Gen Musharraf, who only this month retired as army chief, is likely to face an unprecedented backlash. He has yet to indicate whether elections will still be held as scheduled on January 8 or whether he will re-impose the state of emergency that he lifted only a fortnight ago.
While Ms Bhutto's personal standing has suffered in recent months, she remains a powerful symbol to millions. If her supporters take to the streets and begin attacking symbols of military rule, there is a real possibility that the army will be forced to take draconian measures to prevent the nuclear-armed country from slipping into chaos. If street violence in the Bhutto stronghold of Sindh spreads to Punjab, a province that is home to a large proportion of the country's army personnel, it could have serious repercussions for Gen Musharraf, who seized power in a bloodless coup in 1999.
Analysts warn that the army would be highly reluctant to use military force to suppress a popular movement in Lahore, the capital of Punjab, and might be compelled to force Gen Musharraf to withdraw from political life to appease Bhutto supporters. That will be all the more likely if the death of Ms Bhutto, who was educated at Oxford and Harvard and had an easy rapport with many US legislators, diminishes further the already palpably dwindling level of support Gen Musharraf enjoys in Washington. There are signs that this is happening.
New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination and a former US ambassador to the United Nations, on Thursday called on Washington to push for Gen Musharraf's exit. "President Bush should press Musharraf to step aside, and a broad-based coalition government, consisting of all the democratic parties, should be formed immediately," he said. "It is in the interests of the US that there be a democratic Pakistan that relentlessly hunts down terrorists. Musharraf has failed, and his attempts to cling to power are destabilising his country. He must go."
The removal of Ms Bhutto from Pakistan's political scene leaves the US caught midstream, as it attempts to steer Gen Musharraf towards a more democratic form of rule at a time when he has just lost his only plausible potential ally among the country's major opposition leaders. Washington now faces a dilemma over whether to continue with the planned transition to democracy, which would require Gen Musharraf to find an alternative ally among the country's political parties, or to acquiesce to the continuation of a scarcely-veiled form of military rule.
The candidate best placed to fill the void left by Ms Bhutto - her arch-rival and fellow former prime minister Nawaz Sharif - is hardly ideal from Washington's perspective. Mr Sharif, whose two stints in power, like those of Ms Bhutto, were marred by incompetence and allegations of corruption, is a highly conservative politician whose personal relations with Gen Musharraf are abysmal. The prospects for cohabitation between Mr Sharif and the former army chief, who ousted him in a coup in October 1999 and then had him tried for treason and forced into exile, look bleak.
Notwithstanding Gen Musharraf's removal of his army chief's uniform, Mr Sharif continues in public to take a confrontational stance towards the now purely civilian president, saying that he will not serve as prime minister under him. With his major political rival now removed, Mr Sharif is closer than ever to making a return to power and will choose his tactics with care. As the leader of the most powerful political party in Punjab, and with a reasonable following throughout the country, Pakistan's hopes for a peaceful democratic transition rest to a great extent on his shoulders.
From his immediate reaction to the death of Ms Bhutto, there seems little evidence that Mr Sharif will switch camps and emulate Ms Bhutto in seeking a political accommodation with Gen Musharraf. He said Thursday night that he held Gen Musharraf "responsible and accountable" for the assassination, blaming the government for failing to provide sufficient security for her. In televised remarks to the BBC, Mr Sharif echoed the anger of PPP supporters at the apparent security failure: "There has been a serious lapse in security. The government should have ensured the protection of Benazir Bhutto."
Although the PPP is now leaderless and unable to compete effectively in the forthcoming elections, Mr Sharif denied that his own party stood to gain from Ms Bhutto's death. "This is a tragedy for her party and a tragedy for our party. Nobody stands to gain and nobody should be looking for any gain." In an interview with a Pakistani television news station, he said: "I hold [Musharraf's] policies responsible for landing this country into the terrible mess," he said. "Nobody has confidence in Musharraf. Everybody wants him to step down."
Earlier, Mr Sharif had told Bhutto supporters gathered outside the General Hospital in Rawalpindi that he would join hands with the PPP and fight their "war". "I assure you that I will fight your war from now on," he announced to a large crowd of PPP loyalists, many of whom were crying and wailing outside the hospital in the city of Rawalpindi where Ms Bhutto had died after undergoing surgery. "I share your sorrow and grief along with the entire nation," Mr Sharif said, describing her death as the "saddest day in the history of this country".
For the PPP, the death of its "chairperson for life" creates an existential challenge. Founded by her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who was executed in 1979 by Zia ul- Haq, an earlier US-backed dictator, the PPP has been the political vehicle of the Bhutto family for 40 years. With Ms Bhutto's three children still too young to play an active role in frontline politics, there is no obvious heir from within her immediate family. In this respect, if her death leads to the emergence of non-family members as potential leaders of the country's largest political party, many analysts believe there is a chance of a less feudal and dynastic form of politics evolving in Pakistan.
Some see a strong chance that Aitzaz Ahsan, a suave PPP lawyer, will emergeas a successor to Ms Bhutto. After defending Iftikhar Chaudhry, the former chief justice, against vague charges of misconduct levied by the government and leading the ongoing lawyers' struggle for judicial independence, Mr Ahsan has a stature within Pakistan that Washington and London may find hard to ignore in coming weeks. Whether he can be persuaded to enter into a political cohabitation with Gen Musharraf, however, will be an altogether different question.
The body of Benazir Bhutto, leader of one of Pakistan's main opposition parties, was flown to Larkana, the Bhutto ancestral home, for burial on Friday, a day after she was assassinated by a suicide bomber, throwing the nuclear-armed country into turmoil in the run-up to next month's general election.
As thousands of mourners thronged to her ancestral home ahead of her burial in her family graveyard alongside her father, violence continued to erupt.
Unidentified assailants gunned down a policeman and wounded three in Karachi, and security forces in Sindh, Ms Bhuttos's home province, were given orders to shoot violent protesters on sight.
Police opened fire on protesters in the southern city of Hyderabad, wounding five, and about 4,000 Bhutto party supporters rioted in the northwestern city of Peshawar. A blast in the troubled northwest Swat Valley killed at least three people, including a ruling party election candidate.
Police in Indian-controlled Kashmir fired tear gas at hundreds of stone-throwing demonstrators, and were deployed around the main mosque area of Srinagar, the capital, as authorities feared more protests after Friday prayers.
Mohammad Mian Soomro, the caretake prime minister, on Friday said Pakistan has not decided if there will be any change in plans to hold a general election on January 8. "Nothing yet. Elections stand as they were announced," he told reporters.
S&P, the ratings agency, said Pakistan's credit rating could be lowered if violence and political turmoil escalate, and if the elections is postponed.
The government said it was investigating reports that al-Qaeda had claimed responsibility for Ms Bhutto's assassination. The interior ministry said it was 'unaware' of any such link, but that there was 'every possibility' she had been on an al-Qaeda hit list.
The popular but divisive politician was the first elected female leader of a Muslim state and served as Pakistan's prime minister twice between 1988 and 1996. She sustained fatal injuries as she left an election rally in the Pakistani city of Rawalpindi.
Within hours of her death, former prime minister Nawaz Sharif said his party, the Pakistan Muslim League, would boycott the elections in honour of Ms Bhutto, leader of the Pakistan People's party, and demanded that Pervez Musharraf step down as the nation's president.
Ms Bhutto's party said it would observe a 40-day period of mourning.
Western diplomats warned that the assassination would be a setback to the Bush administration's hopes of bringing about "a transition to democracy" in Pakistan.
Ms Bhutto's return to Pakistan in October from eight years of exile was widely seen to have taken place with the support of the US administration, which was keen to promote a moderate politician who could extend a lifeline to Mr Musharraf and buttress the important US ally's slender base of domestic political support.
"This is an extremely destabilising development for the future of Pakistan," warned Hasan Askari Rizvi, a commentator on security affairs.
Jo Johnson further adds: The assassination of Benazir Bhutto, less than two weeks before a fraught general election, has dashed western hopes for a peaceful transition to democracy in Pakistan. The murder of the 54-year-old former prime minister, the first woman elected to lead a post-colonial Muslim state, leaves the country's largest political party without a leader and deprives the US of its best hope of providing a civilian façade to the unpopular rule of President Pervez Musharraf.
Pakistan's immediate future, however, depends on the popular reaction to the assassination over the course of the next few days. If the army is blamed for Ms Bhutto's death or is seen as somehow having failed to take adequate measures to protect her, Gen Musharraf, who only this month retired as army chief, is likely to face an unprecedented backlash. He has yet to indicate whether elections will still be held as scheduled on January 8 or whether he will re-impose the state of emergency that he lifted only a fortnight ago.
While Ms Bhutto's personal standing has suffered in recent months, she remains a powerful symbol to millions. If her supporters take to the streets and begin attacking symbols of military rule, there is a real possibility that the army will be forced to take draconian measures to prevent the nuclear-armed country from slipping into chaos. If street violence in the Bhutto stronghold of Sindh spreads to Punjab, a province that is home to a large proportion of the country's army personnel, it could have serious repercussions for Gen Musharraf, who seized power in a bloodless coup in 1999.
Analysts warn that the army would be highly reluctant to use military force to suppress a popular movement in Lahore, the capital of Punjab, and might be compelled to force Gen Musharraf to withdraw from political life to appease Bhutto supporters. That will be all the more likely if the death of Ms Bhutto, who was educated at Oxford and Harvard and had an easy rapport with many US legislators, diminishes further the already palpably dwindling level of support Gen Musharraf enjoys in Washington. There are signs that this is happening.
New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination and a former US ambassador to the United Nations, on Thursday called on Washington to push for Gen Musharraf's exit. "President Bush should press Musharraf to step aside, and a broad-based coalition government, consisting of all the democratic parties, should be formed immediately," he said. "It is in the interests of the US that there be a democratic Pakistan that relentlessly hunts down terrorists. Musharraf has failed, and his attempts to cling to power are destabilising his country. He must go."
The removal of Ms Bhutto from Pakistan's political scene leaves the US caught midstream, as it attempts to steer Gen Musharraf towards a more democratic form of rule at a time when he has just lost his only plausible potential ally among the country's major opposition leaders. Washington now faces a dilemma over whether to continue with the planned transition to democracy, which would require Gen Musharraf to find an alternative ally among the country's political parties, or to acquiesce to the continuation of a scarcely-veiled form of military rule.
The candidate best placed to fill the void left by Ms Bhutto - her arch-rival and fellow former prime minister Nawaz Sharif - is hardly ideal from Washington's perspective. Mr Sharif, whose two stints in power, like those of Ms Bhutto, were marred by incompetence and allegations of corruption, is a highly conservative politician whose personal relations with Gen Musharraf are abysmal. The prospects for cohabitation between Mr Sharif and the former army chief, who ousted him in a coup in October 1999 and then had him tried for treason and forced into exile, look bleak.
Notwithstanding Gen Musharraf's removal of his army chief's uniform, Mr Sharif continues in public to take a confrontational stance towards the now purely civilian president, saying that he will not serve as prime minister under him. With his major political rival now removed, Mr Sharif is closer than ever to making a return to power and will choose his tactics with care. As the leader of the most powerful political party in Punjab, and with a reasonable following throughout the country, Pakistan's hopes for a peaceful democratic transition rest to a great extent on his shoulders.
From his immediate reaction to the death of Ms Bhutto, there seems little evidence that Mr Sharif will switch camps and emulate Ms Bhutto in seeking a political accommodation with Gen Musharraf. He said Thursday night that he held Gen Musharraf "responsible and accountable" for the assassination, blaming the government for failing to provide sufficient security for her. In televised remarks to the BBC, Mr Sharif echoed the anger of PPP supporters at the apparent security failure: "There has been a serious lapse in security. The government should have ensured the protection of Benazir Bhutto."
Although the PPP is now leaderless and unable to compete effectively in the forthcoming elections, Mr Sharif denied that his own party stood to gain from Ms Bhutto's death. "This is a tragedy for her party and a tragedy for our party. Nobody stands to gain and nobody should be looking for any gain." In an interview with a Pakistani television news station, he said: "I hold [Musharraf's] policies responsible for landing this country into the terrible mess," he said. "Nobody has confidence in Musharraf. Everybody wants him to step down."
Earlier, Mr Sharif had told Bhutto supporters gathered outside the General Hospital in Rawalpindi that he would join hands with the PPP and fight their "war". "I assure you that I will fight your war from now on," he announced to a large crowd of PPP loyalists, many of whom were crying and wailing outside the hospital in the city of Rawalpindi where Ms Bhutto had died after undergoing surgery. "I share your sorrow and grief along with the entire nation," Mr Sharif said, describing her death as the "saddest day in the history of this country".
For the PPP, the death of its "chairperson for life" creates an existential challenge. Founded by her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who was executed in 1979 by Zia ul- Haq, an earlier US-backed dictator, the PPP has been the political vehicle of the Bhutto family for 40 years. With Ms Bhutto's three children still too young to play an active role in frontline politics, there is no obvious heir from within her immediate family. In this respect, if her death leads to the emergence of non-family members as potential leaders of the country's largest political party, many analysts believe there is a chance of a less feudal and dynastic form of politics evolving in Pakistan.
Some see a strong chance that Aitzaz Ahsan, a suave PPP lawyer, will emergeas a successor to Ms Bhutto. After defending Iftikhar Chaudhry, the former chief justice, against vague charges of misconduct levied by the government and leading the ongoing lawyers' struggle for judicial independence, Mr Ahsan has a stature within Pakistan that Washington and London may find hard to ignore in coming weeks. Whether he can be persuaded to enter into a political cohabitation with Gen Musharraf, however, will be an altogether different question.