The carnage in Karachi amid former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto’s homecoming last Thursday, in which at least 136 people were killed, is a “bloody but perfect metaphor” for Pakistan’s politics, said Ziauddin Sardar in The Guardian. Over six decades of existence, the country has functioned not as a nation but as a geostrategic utility to serve the interests of outside powers. Once again, “political opportunism, home grown and nourished by foreign interests” has proved “deadly for ordinary Pakistanis”.
The plan, forged by US and British powers, is for Pervez Musharraf to step down as army chief and rule as civilian president, with Bhutto as Prime Minister. This means elections, due to be held by mid-January, will be “anything but fair and free”, while the deal offers scant cause for rejoicing. Bhutto’s talk of moderate Islam, development and democracy has seduced the West and enabled her to evade outstanding corruption charges, which would have prevented her return to power, but it rings hollow in a country that has seen her two previous administrations most noted for their corruption.
By making a deal with Musharraf’s government now, she has unwittingly added to the recruits for the fundamentalist cause, said Imran Khan in The Sunday Telegraph. She hadn’t reckoned on Musharraf’s unpopularity; he is seen as an American stooge. The sad thing is that it wasn‘t necessary; Musharraf was sinking before she threw him a lifeline. By publicly siding with a dictator, she has “deliberately sabotaged the democratic process”. To win the next election, he will have to “massively rig it”.
The deal may be flawed, but it at least offers hope that a fundamentalist takeover will be averted, says The Sunday Telegraph. Pakistan has nuclear bombs, which, in the hands of an Islamist government, constitute a “terrifying threat”. Wrong, said Sardar. The political opportunism of Bhutto is the “shortest route to civil war and the break-up of Pakistan“. What the West has “failed to do” is to engage with, listen to, or empower the middle class. But until Pakistan’s own people set the national agenda, “reform, moderation and new direction will never materialise“.