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It seems striking,
but a full year has passed since the murder of Pakistan’s future Prime
Minister, Benazir Bhutto. The country seems to be on a one way road to
disaster. Perhaps, rather than lamenting on her loss, Pakistanis and
especially those running the government currently, should think of how
things would be different under Bhutto.
While
there are many issues that would have been approached differently by
Bhutto, I believe the general leadership in
Pakistan’s
new civilian government would have been stronger under her control
rather than Zardari. First, unlike Zardari who has never run for an
election in his life, Bhutto was a trained politician who understood
the art and war of politics, similar to the Sharif brothers.
The missteps by
Zardari which tore apart the PPP’s coalition with Muslim League (N)
probably would have not occurred if Bhutto was in office. While it was
inevitable that these two parties would split at some point, the
manner of the split was indicative of Zardari’s inadequacy as a
leader. Instead of parting ways as ideological counterparts, Zardari
reneged on deals made with the N League and made assertions that
ruined the credibility of the PPP in the eyes of the people.
Bhutto would have
approached the reinstatement of the justices differently as well,
since she was a supporter of the lawyers’ movement. Perhaps one of the
reasons why the democratic civilian government was able to garner so
much popular support was their support of the lawyers’ movement.
However, this support was only extended over the campaign trail, and
once Zardari was placed in power, he acquiesced to the powers that be
in the military structure and halted the government’s support of the
justices.
While the military
had great interests in suppressing an independent judiciary, Bhutto
may have been able to withstand this pressure and pursue the goal of
reinstating the justices with greater efficiency than Zardari, who
buckled under the demands. Such a simple act as reinstating the
justices immediately could have garnered even more support from the
elites and populace, while sending a message to the military that the
civilian government would not succumb to their demands.
Though I have
painted a rosy picture of Pakistan’s future had Bhutto not been
assassinated, there are many things that she could not have changed
because of long-standing complexities of certain issues. The first and
most contentious is the uncontrolled power of the ISI to do whatever
it wants inside and outside the realms of
Pakistan,
and the power it has over the civilian government. It would have been
hard for Bhutto to challenge the ISI’s prevalence because it is one of
Pakistan’s longest running and best funded agencies and has contacts
with terrorist groups across the globe.
Next, Bhutto would
have had an equally hard time battling the growing terrorist threat in
the border regions as Zardari’s government is having. The complexity
of this situation is that the government must strike a balance of
appeasing American demands of bombings on terrorist compounds while
also pacifying the populaces of those regions who are becoming
increasingly angered and detached from the central government. This
delicate balance would be hard even for a seasoned politician like
Bhutto since the issue of terrorism is where domestic and foreign
interests converge.
It is clear that
Pakistan
suffered a great loss in the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, and many
argued that her death would spark a true revolution against terrorist
elements within Pakistani society. So far, such a revolution has not
occurred, and much can be blamed on the central government and their
lack of adequate leadership for the lack of said revolution.
Bhutto could have
served as a more effective mediator between the N Leauge and the PPP,
and she would have been able to reinstate the justices with greater
efficiency. However, the dominance of the military would have still
prevailed if Bhutto were alive, and the ISI would continue to operate
without any civilian control over it. Further, the rise of terrorism
and the methods used to deal with the threat would not have been much
different under Bhutto due to the complexities of the situation.
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