The State of Affairs in Pakistan Post-Bhutto

Published January 22, 2008

By Alexander D. Pinto

It was shocking.

Regardless of the fact that there were death threats, a major attempt on her life in her chaotic return to Pakistan, and that she had a history of questionable political tactics, Benazir Bhutto’s assassination on December 27th was shocking. Of course it was no surprise; but surprise and shock can be separate.

Bhutto represented not a guarantee, but, at the very least, a hope for stability in Pakistan. Though her own term as Prime Minister of Pakistan in the 1990’s was marred by autocratic corruption, and at best she would have held only shared power, combining leadership with current Prime Minister Pervez Musharraf.

However, her strength as a political leader, and her popularity as leader of a major political force (Pakistan People’s Party, the most popular in the country) were beacons of hope for progress on the slow, dangerous road to peace and democracy in Pakistan.
While some Western media only provided either shallow sympathy after her death, or, in some publications, harsh criticism of Bhutto’s political past, educated Pakistani figures seem to consider her death a great loss. They acknowledge her corruption but many had hoped that a new, determined Bhutto would bring the necessary democratic infrastructure to a country that, in the words of Asha Amirali of the Pakistan’s People’s Rights Movement, “Doesn’t know what democracy is.”

A major gripe of political Pakistanis is that in the Americanized view of democracy there is seemingly only one indication of democracy: the ubiquitous “Free and Fair Elections.” Pakistan, they say, which is still basically ruled by rich landowning classes, needs to think about many more facets of democracy before they consider it a success.

Those landowning classes largely control the votes of the mostly-agricultural, 50-percent-literate populace through an almost feudal system. The powerful government branches help each other out to stay rich and in power while largely neglecting the poor, and as the world saw in November of last year free speech and press is fairly subjective.

Indeed, Bhutto herself was a part of the rich landowning class, and her rule of the country was nothing close to our understanding of democracy. But the prevailing mood expounded by forward-thinking Pakistani politicians, authors, and pundits was that Bhutto, under international and internal pressure to change the undemocratic ways of President Pervez Musharraf, would turn over a new leaf and lead the country toward democracy.

Now that Bhutto is out of the picture, the Pakistan People’s Party is led by Bhutto’s 19 year-old son Bilawal, and her politically inexperienced husband Asif Ali Zardari. Without the strong hand of Bhutto, the party’s political future is questionable. Bilalwal and Zardari have insisted that the elections scheduled for this month must not be postponed, hoping to ride the wave of sympathy after the death of Benazir Bhutto to victory.

But what would a victory for the party mean without a great leader, since Bhutto left her family as leaders for life? The coming months will be filled with hope of a miracle in Pakistani politics, though now it is yet to be seen both from where it will come and if it will come at all.

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