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Reflection on a woman who wanted to restore democracy

Daily Times Monitor

LAHORE: Former premier Benazir Bhutto, who was assassinated in a suicide attack in Rawalpindi on Thursday aged 54, restored democracy to her country in 1988 after 11 years of dictatorship, according to her obituary published in Daily Telegraph.

She did not organise anti-America rallies or issue fatwas against best-selling authors, it says.

To her opponents she was more English than Pakistani, more Western than Eastern. Her Urdu, although fluent, was ungrammatic, while her Sindhi, her family’s mother tongue, was almost non-existent.

During her first 20-month spell as prime minister, from 1988 to 1990, she failed to pass a single piece of major legislation, admittedly due in large part to the constraints imposed on her by a hostile and still-powerful military.

Second time around, in 1993, she had the full backing of the army, and managed subsequently to install a party loyalist, Farooq Leghari, as president.

The strongest backlash was provoked by her attempts to control the press and manipulate the judiciary.

The appointment of judges on the basis of loyalty to her party caused massive damage to the Pakistani judiciary’s already dwindling credibility, not to say her own.

Her main interest was always foreign policy – she became the most well-travelled prime minister in Pakistan’s history.

Benazir was born on June 21, 1953, the eldest child of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who was prime minister of Pakistan from 1970 until 1977.

Benazir grew up in their spacious Karachi residence - 70 Clifton.

She had an English governess and went to a convent run by Irish nuns. Her reputation for bossiness stemmed from childhood when she would direct a stream of imperatives at her younger brothers. She always claimed to have been her father’s favourite. At 10 she was sent to boarding school in Murree.

The Tashkent Treaty which followed the 17-day 1965 war, in which Pakistan’s President Ayub Khan relinquished all of the gains made by his army disgusted Zulfikar Bhutto, who promptly resigned as foreign minister. Two years later, in 1967, he formed the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP).

Benazir, then 14, enthusiastically joined up, the start of a lifelong political affiliation.

In 1969, aged 16, Benazir was admitted to study comparative government at Harvard.

From there she went to Oxford, where she is remembered as a glamorous and cosmopolitan Asian girl about town, known to her friends as Pinky. She had a penchant for royal biographies and she liked nothing better than browsing in Harrods - a habit she kept throughout her life.

Yet indications of her hard ambitious side surfaced when she stayed on an extra year to become president of the union.

Benazir had her last meeting with her father a few hours before he was hanged, separated by a heavy metal grille.

After launching a campaign to topple General Zia, Benazir and her mother spent years in jail or under house arrest at Al-Murtaza, their country estate in Larkana.

In 1984, Zia allowed her to travel to London for medical treatment. She took a flat and worked at rebuilding the PPP around herself and preparing for an election.

Her two brothers, Murtaza and Shahnawaz, meanwhile, had turned to terrorism. In Beirut, under the guidance of Yasir Arafat, they formed the Pakistan Liberation Army, later renamed Al-Zulfikar.

Al-Zulfikar hijacked a Pakistan International Airlines flight in 1981, which gave Zia a pretext to crack down on the PPP, and Benazir was forced to distance herself from her brothers. Shahnawaz was mysteriously poisoned in his apartment in Cannes 1986, but Murtaza remained a thorn in Benazir’s side.

In October 1993, Murtaza announced his intention to return to Pakistan from exile in Damascus to contest the elections that brought Benazir’s party back to power.

Benazir’s mother, at that time chairman of the PPP, endorsed his decision and campaigned for him, often against the official PPP candidate. But she was soon dumped as PPP chairman.

In September 1996, Murtaza was shot dead in a gun battle with police in Karachi.

She showed greater pragmatism, even ruthlessness, in her second government.

In November 1996, President Farouq Leghari dismissed her government.

Benazir consented to a traditional arranged marriage in 1987. Her family’s choice of Asif Zardari, a member of the Sindhi feudal elite, did her no favours politically.

After her second government fell, a stream of corruption and criminal charges was brought against him, keeping him in jail without trial for eight years.

For much of this time, she was preoccupied with a series of lawsuits against her and Zardari that were primarily motivated to end her political career.

Around 160 people were killed in a suicide attack on her homecoming rally in Karachi.

She and Zardari had two daughters, Aseefa and Bakhtwar, and a son Bilawal.

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