Bhutto’s true colors
UNASHAMED HYPOCRISY International Herald Tribune, France
Analysts are lamenting the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, calling it the death of hope for democracy in Pakistan. Benazir certainly had popular support throughout the country. Her martyred father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who was Pakistan’s first elected prime minister and founder of the Pakistan People’s Party, had the force and charm of a socialist demagogue. Adding glamour to the inherited chairmanship of the party and the romantic tragic legacy, Benazir won the support of unthinking masses both at home and abroad.
Despite the prevailing opinion, Benazir’s death may offer new hope for democratic values: rights, the rule of law, and law enforcement.
Benazir Bhutto gave Pakistan false hope of these enlightened values two decades ago. In a shocking display of ineptitude, Pakistan’s first woman prime minister failed to pass a single piece of major legislation during her first 20 months in power. According to Amnesty International, Bhutto’s particular brand of democracy while in office - in the words of historian William Dalrymple, “elective feudalism” - brought some of the world’s highest numbers of extrajudicial killings, torture, and custodial deaths. Transparency International characterized hers as one of the world’s most corrupt governments.
Bhutto revealed her true colors during an interview when she was asked whether she would travel second class as leader of the opposition under the Nawaz Sharif government’s austerity measures. In fury, the “people’s representative” asked the interviewer if he knew who she was, who her grandfather was, and stated that she was a Bhutto, not an ordinary person, and that Bhuttos never traveled second class.
As much as anything, Bhutto’s recent about-face on the issue of supporting an independent judiciary has been galling. [more]