Perspectives
The chinks in Bhutto's armour
Aself-styled "daughter of the East," Benazir Bhutto is far from the image the rubric of her autobiography conjures up. Instead, from her toe-nail to her scalp she is a westerner in taste, attitude and upbringing. Educated at Harvard and Oxford, she is more at ease with the atmospherics and value-system of the West.
The prime minister of Pakistan twice before, she nourishes the not too hidden ambition of reoccupying the berth for the third time. Re-enforcing the perception in Pakistan that the route to Islamabad passes through Washington, she maintained a regular channel to US officials and members of the media while pitching herself as a force that can truly fight what the Americans call the war on terror in the frontline state of Pakistan if, of course, she is at the helm.
Conforming to the US's post 9/11 neo-conservative world-view she did earn some brownie points with all who mattered in the US administration, which was eager to see that President Musharraf, a proven ally, was interfaced with Ms. Bhutto, the leader of a political party with a vote bank, liberal pro-US views, and gender appeal.
Washington has indeed been worried over Pakistan, which, in its view, is an unstable nuclear state with large swathes of territory in the frontier adjoining Afghanistan, where the US-led coalition has been fighting a losing war, and which are out of its control.
The touchstone of Pakistan's importance to the US is, however, its reliability as a frontline state in the so-called anti-terror war. So Pakistan must be propped up politically, economically and militarily to be a secure ally. While the US is, as usual, encouraging in ensuring the ally's economic and military muscle, in her calculation a flagging anti-terror war can be boosted if Musharraf's hand can be strengthened by providing him a wider and more liberal political base, and none can be a better choice than Bhutto to do the job.
As a result, a coalition between the president and Benazir Bhutto seems to have been brokered by the US, if not between themselves. All irritants in the way, such as Benazir's corruption cases, have been swept under the rugs in an amazing volte-face. Yet, the US assumption that Ms. Bhutto can garner sufficient votes in the 2008 election to become the prime minister is now questionable.
The more she leaned towards Washington to curry its support and patronisation, the more she lost in terms of popularity, particularly with the extremist forces in Pakistan who view her as an American stooge to be denied any electoral mandate.
Her ratings in opinion polls have fallen sharply ever since she wanted her past sins to be white-washed by National Reconciliation Ordnance (NRO), although there are more reasons for her poor ratings. In her bid for premiership for the third time, she cleverly distanced herself from the wider anti-Musharraf political resistance that grew with the president's show-down with the country's chief justice and the latter's subsequent re-instatement.
The country's legal fraternity accomplished what could not be done by disparate groups of politicians, even though they, on their own, joined the anti-Musharraf agitations. Now, when the president's power play has been substantially circumscribed, Ms Bhutto chose to cosy up with him even at the risk of alienating sections of her party.
The opponents of a US-brokered Musharraf-Bhutto arrangement see the move as undermining democratic forces at a critical juncture of Pakistan's history when -- given the public mood for dismantling of the military's stranglehold -- a democratic efflorescence is imminent. It is alleged that Benazir has been sending out feelers for working with General Mushrraf since he assumed power eight years ago.
Although such overtures were then rebuffed by a confident Musharraf, they did show Ms. Bhutto in a poor light. The president, who is now at his weakest, has decided to rope in Bhutto for his rescue -- the latter unabashedly responded by throwing him the lifeline -- and for a share in the power pie.
Notwithstanding her claims of being a protagonist of democracy, she seldom went for its substance. Instead, she remained happy only with its trappings, and so long as it opened the door for embezzling the state coffers. Her Swiss bank account of about 1 billion is a pointer to the recklessness of her plunder. Yet, finding few alternatives to continuing military dictatorship, the now awakened Pakistanis -- particularly the burgeoning middle class and the desperate masses -- overwhelmingly voted for her party -- maybe for its avowal of "roti-kapra-makan" for everyone.
But, even here, Benazir had no qualms in compromising public interest while upholding her own. When offered a deal by the real custodian of power, the military, she readily accepted the premiership with conditions that she wouldn't reopen her father's case, would accept an establishment-picked president, and would never interfere in defence and foreign affairs.
She swallowed the bait, thus ignoring the limitations imposed on an elected prime minister. It was the first of a series of actions in the betrayal of democracy. As a result, the democracy that appeared like light at the end of tunnel turned out to be "stained the light, night-bitten morning," in the words of Faiz Ahmed Faiz.
On her return to Pakistan on October 18, after long years of self-exile, Bhutto was accorded a roaring reception by a carnival of hundreds of thousands of dedicated party-men. The deadly moment arrived when the lethal explosion of a suicide bomb turned the occasion into a midnight carnage -- the worst in Pakistan's political history.
There had already been chinks in Bhutto's armour, but that's the armour she willingly donned. On the one hand stood the country's extremist elements, with whom Bhutto shared feelings only of disgust. This disgust obviously intensified with her willing collaboration with the Americans by accepting the US-brokered deal with Musharaf to finally crush them on their own soil.
On the other hand are her political adversaries in the power saddle, which many of them now feel is slipping away from under them. Over and above, there is the question of the military psyche, nourished by unlimited pelf and perk. Ms. Bhutto has carried some heavy baggage ever since she entered politics; she is a woman, a Sindhi and a Bhutto. For all these reasons, she always remained anathema to the establishment. A generation of army officers has been brain-washed into blaming Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto (ZAB) for the 1971 defeat. As a woman, she is unacceptable to the religious right and, in their eyes, fair game for crude jokes.
Tragedies spanning her turbulent career have, however, hardened her, and fortune has repeatedly been propitious for her. She can always be the junior partner of a dictator, or a show-cased prime minister, with her talent. But ZAB had been a consummate politician of the sub-continent. The enlightened Pakistanis expect much more from ZAB's chosen heir to his political legacy.
Brig ( retd) Hafiz is former DG of BIISS.
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