One year on, no one in Pakistan has been able to revive Benazir Bhutto’s combination of popular appeal and breadth of vision, however flawed, said The Independent in an editorial yesterday. Without it, prospects for regional peace and stability must be dim, said the British daily. Excerpts:
Pakistan’s calendar is replete with difficult commemorations. But the first anniversary of Benazir Bhutto’s death must be accounted among the most perilous of recent years. Ms. Bhutto’s death, in the midst of a keenly fought election campaign that her party had looked set to win, did not unleash the widespread violence that had been feared. The delayed election brought her People’s Party to power.
The country also completed the transition to civilian rule, set in train by President Pervez Musharraf the previous year — even if it did not happen quite as he might have envisaged. It is also worth noting that the government formed after last February’s elections remains in power. After looking into the abyss of inter-communal warfare a year ago, Pakistan stepped back from the brink.
None of this, however, should obscure the potential for instability and violence that remains. That Ms. Bhutto’s widower, Asif Ali Zardari, essentially won the presidency on the back of the prime ministership that would have been hers illustrates the continuing sway of the clan, and the Bhuttos in particular, in Pakistan. The People’s Party was, and continues to be, Benazir’s party. Prospects for a durable system of civilian party politics remain slim. Each new transition, expected or unexpected, can be a flashpoint. Nor have Pakistan’s new leaders been much more successful than Musharraf in extending the rule of law into the country’s more remote corners. Unless President Zardari and his government are able to control the whole territory of Pakistan, however, hopes of stability either internally or externally — and specifically in Afghanistan — are likely to be frustrated.
