The government in Washington had placed great hopes in Bhutto as part of its ambitious project of returning stability to a country shaken by Islamists. The White House had leaned heavily on Musharraf to allow Bhutto to return from the West, and Washington was behind the curious power-sharing arrangement with Musharraf, a general who had come to power in a military coup, in which he would remain as Pakistan's civilian president and she would head up the government.
Now, though, the elections that were to usher Bhutto back into the prime minister's office have been thrown into doubt by her death, and Pakistan's Election Commission recommended on Sunday that the vote be delayed by several weeks. The PPP would like the country to go to the polls as quickly as possible to benefit from a massive wave of sympathy for Bhutto now sweeping the country.
The US seems to be betting on her husband as a possible election victor. On the day of the attack US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice spoke by phone with Bhutto’s widower Ali Asif Zardari, now acting PPP head. Bhutto seriously considered him to be Pakistan’s Nelson Mandela, and one of her top priorities had been to ensure his rehabilitation if she became prime minister again. For years Washington had put all its backing behind Musharraf in order to keep Pakistan in the anti-terror coalition. But Bush had reluctantly begun to realize that the president, decried as a US lackey, had actually become an unreliable ally.
The Terror Problem
It was Washington’s Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte, a man who specializes in delicate missions from Latin America to Iraq, who in November persuaded Musharraf to lift the state of emergency. He also urged Musharraf to release Bhutto from her house arrest and to announce a date for parliamentary elections.
It was something of an about-face for the Bush Administration. Since the Sept. 11 attacks, the US has pumped $10 billion (€6.7 billion) into Pakistan in order to guarantee that Musharraf and his army would become a reliable ally in the war against Islamist terror. Still, despite 50 percent of those funds being handed to the country's military, terror has remained a major problem in Pakistan.
The US, in short, has seen little return on its investment. Despite warnings from Washington, Musharraf repeatedly entered into tactical alliances with radical forces in his own country. Meanwhile, America is no longer so convinced of Pakistan’s value in the war on terror. Only last week the US Congress imposed new restrictions on aid to Musharraf.
In stark contrast Bhutto promised the US clarity and a lack of ambiguity. To her Western mentors it seemed that she had finally made a commitment to democracy and perhaps she had. Her editorials in leading Western newspapers, combined with her speeches and interviews, indicated that she was heading firmly in a democratic direction. It was possible that in her third stint as prime minister, she was going to complete a political transformation.
Talibanized
But Washington was expecting much more from Bhutto. For one, the future constellation of power seemed like a reassuring arrangement: a civilian democratic façade with the military guaranteeing security. Bhutto had made it known that once in power she would allow US forces to attack al-Qaida bases on Pakistani territory -- if Pakistani soldiers were not in position to do so, she added. The comment was a clear swipe at Musharraf, who had always insisted that despite a heavy military presence, it was simply impossible to gain control over the volatile border region with Afghanistan. In an interview with SPIEGEL in August, Bhutto warned of the great danger that terrorism posed to her country and she insisted that Pakistan must not be allowed to be Talibanized.
However, in the crucial phase of the election campaign even Bhutto had to be cautious. There was the danger that her opponents would exploit her proximity to Washington and to the globally unpopular President Bush. Her rival Sharif in particular, who had also returned from exile, made sure to keep a greater distance from the Americans.
In the final days before her death, it was no longer certain that the deal with Musharraf was holding. Instead of working toward power-sharing she was increasing her attacks on the president, who, as agreed, had given up his position as army chief and had begun his second presidential term as a civilian. And the president must have realized that Washington had started to look around for a new strong man -- a man to take over after Musharraf was gone.
Whether Pakistan’s president will now be able to bring together those forces intent, it would seem, on tearing the country apart; whether he will find success in combating the terror emanating from his country; whether he can knit together the ever-wider rips in the social fabric -- even his friends and allies have their doubts. Pessimists already see a failed state when they look at Pakistan. The see a kind of Somalia armed with nuclear weapons, a paradise for Jihadists in training. According to an August survey, Osama bin Laden could count on the support of 46 percent of Pakistanis; Musharraf’s score was a mere 38 percent.
But there are signs of hope and indications of a budding civil society. Mass demonstrations have rarely looked as they do in today’s Pakistan. The majority of those peacefully taking to the streets is not made up of furious opposition activists, outraged students or revolutionary workers. Rather, the streets of Pakistan are full of lawyers defending the constitution and of women demanding their civil rights.
The heroines of the protests march silently, carrying banners demanding their say in Pakistan. Secret service personnel and policemen, few of them in uniform, pull some of them out of the crowd and take them away. Many are placed under house arrest, some are taken to prison.
The Heavy Weight of Her Father's Work
The heroes of the protests carry posters demanding the immediate resignation of President Musharraf. From afar, the marches look like Wall Street out for a walk -- most of them wear black suits, white shirts and neckties. The regime’s toughs tend to be less restrained with the lawyers than they are with the women: They are often covered in blood by the time they are bundled into the waiting police vans. “Help us save Pakistan from the abyss,” yelled one recently through a van’s barred windows.
They aren’t going to give up. They will continue to demand that those judges and justices fired by Musharraf be reinstated, foremost among them the Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry. And they will continue to insist that media censorship be ended and that the independent television channels be allowed to go back on air.
Benazir Bhutto’s long and difficult journey came to an end last Friday. Tens of thousands accompanied her on the last stage of that voyage -- on her way to the family grave in Gharhi Khuda Bakhsh near Lakarna, where she was buried next to her father. Her opponents Sharif and Musharraf elected to stay away from the event -- those present shouted anti-Musharraf and anti-American slogans. Security, this time, was extremely tight -- much tighter than one day earlier in Rawalpindi, at Bhutto’s last ever campaign rally.
Bhutto made her last visit to her father’s grave soon after her return to Pakistan in October. She spread rose petals and bowed over the gravestone for a few minutes in silence, as though she suddenly felt the heavy weight of carrying on her father’s work.
She then took some time to write a few lines about her past, a kind of reckoning -- and one she, typically, made sure appeared in print. They were words of farewell, prophetic and poetic at the same time:
"I have led an unusual life. I have buried a father killed at age 50 and two brothers killed in the prime of their lives. I raised my children as a single mother when my husband was arrested and held for eight years without a conviction -- a hostage to my political career,” she wrote recently in the Washington Post. “I made my choice when the mantle of political leadership was thrust upon my shoulders after my father's murder. I did not shrink from responsibility then, and I will not shrink from it now."
By Erich Follath, Hans Hoyng, Daniel Steinvorth and Helen Zuber
Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan
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