Real opposition

Benazir made it known that she was in total command of the PPP and that a new government would be formed on her terms.

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HER absence was her presence. Although she lived in self-imposed exile for close to eight years, from 1998 to October 2007, Benazir Bhuttos presence was all-pervasive in Pakistan. The politics of the military-dominated Islamic republic revolved around her and she herself was just an e-mail away.

This correspondent, who represented The Hindu and Frontline in Pakistan from 2000 to 2006, like most politicians, journalists and the wheeler-dealers in the land of the pure, could reach her either personally or through her aides within hours, at any time, for she used the modern media and the communication technology to the maximum effect. She ran Pakistans largest and most popular political party from her home away from home, in Dubai or London. Benazir Bhutto was perhaps the only world leader who, sitting continents away, could hold the reins of a party and its base in an eternally crisis-ridden homeland where dictatorship was the norm. Her tools the World Wide Web and the simple telephone. It was always the message and not the medium that counted. She was the message of hope for a secular, democratic and moderate Islamic Republic of Pakistan.

Her grip over the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), which she headed as life-time chairperson, and the bond she shared with millions of followers of the Bhutto family legacy, were unquestionable and absolute. She was in touch with her party brass on the Internet on a minute-to-minute basis, and gave detailed e-mail interviews to the Pakistani and the international press. Quick and convincing, her arguments and analyses made her a media favourite. Her views on fundamentalist elements, particularly Al Qaeda and the Taliban, her exposes on the dubious role of the intelligence networks in the Pakistani military establishment, and her constant endeavours to put Pakistan back on the rails of democracy were often quoted or appreciated.

She proved to be an able daughter of an illustrious father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. Although her life was an ironic sequence of exiles and returns, her quest for a democratic future for Pakistan was passionate. The fact that her father was hanged to death in 1977 by the military dictator, General Zia-ul-Haq, never deterred her from pursuing the democratic ideals he had symbolised.

She went into exile after her father was executed, only to return a decade later. The next 10 years she spent in Pakistan, twice as Prime Minister (both terms cut short by the manipulative military), were agonising as she battled the overt and covert military apparatus. Her second self-exile towards the end of 1998 came amid political vendetta by a military-propelled Pakistan Muslim League headed by Nawaz Sharif.

Benazir Bhutto was among the many who welcomed the bloodless coup staged by Musharraf in October 1999 that saw the ouster of Sharif. But her euphoria proved short-lived as Musharraf dubbed the Bhutto-Sharif duo as two sides of the same coin. Thus began another chapter in her political battle with the military in Pakistan. It is a tribute to her will, determination, courage and charisma that despite being pitted against mighty odds, she managed to keep her party intact during those eight years.

Her party leaders and cadre obeyed her orders because for them she was the soul of the PPP. The aftermath of the military-guided 2002 general elections best illustrates the point. The then all-powerful Chief of the Army Staff and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Pakistan, Pervez Musharraf, did his best to entice the leaders of the PPP to accept the prime ministership and break the spirit of Benazir Bhutto. It was all in vain. All he could succeed was in getting a few PPP Members of Parliament with controversial backgrounds to cross the floor and join the party he helped to come to power.

This correspondent vividly remembers the event which put paid to the efforts of the Musharraf regime. It was the evening of October 31, 2002, in Islamabad. Benazir Bhutto, camping in Washington, convened a telephone conference of the newly elected PPP Members of Parliament and senior leaders. The PPP leaders were assembled at the Islamabad residence of her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, who had been in jail for over five years on various charges at that time. Benazir was in Washington in a bid to persuade the Bush administration to counsel Musharraf to transfer power to a civilian set-up without further delay.

For all her courage, fortitude and vision, Benazir had no illusions about the dynamics of power politics. Although she loathed the idea, Benazir knew the triple A syndrome (Army, America and Allah) that had become the bane of Pakistani politics. The allusion is to the nexus between the Army and the military-patronised clergy within Pakistan and the convergence of U.S. interests with their aims.

In changed geopolitical realities post-9/11, the dice was heavily loaded against Benazir. Musharraf and his military, the brand new ally of the U.S. in its war against terrorism, and the U.S. were on one side and Benazir on the other. Washingtons only interest in the 2002 elections in the new frontline state in the war on terror was to ensure the supremacy of Musharraf. Democracy could wait for another day.

The U.S. was actually pushing Benazir to give a free hand to Musharraf to cobble together political forces that in his view could best serve the interests of the military and Washington. And the Generals prescription was to make the first of its kind six-party religious alliance, the Muttaihada Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), a major stakeholder in the puppet civilian set-up he strung together.

The MMA was actually nicknamed the Military Mullah Alliance. Incidentally, it included the Hafiz-ur-Rehman (considered to be the father of the Taliban) faction of the Jamaat-e-Ulema Islami (JUI). Thanks to the generous help from the military establishment, the MMA, for the first time in the electoral history of Pakistan, managed to secure about 10 per cent of the votes polled. Not only was the MMA a coalition partner of the Musharraf-backed kings party at the Centre, but it also took over the provincial administration of the sensitive North West Frontier Province (NWFP).

Yet, Benazir Bhutto and her party remained resolute. They refused to succumb to pressures from within and without. The message from the telephone conference Benazir held with her party was loud and clear the PPP would settle for nothing less than complete transfer of power by the military establishment.

Although on self-exile for over four years at that time, Benazir made it known to all those who mattered that she was not only in total command of her party but also that the formation of a new government would be on her terms. The message from her was that Musharraf was daydreaming if he believed that he could bypass her and involve the PPP in the government formation exercise. She made it known that if the PPP was to be on board, Musharraf would have to treat her as an equal. He was told to forget about his constitutional amendments, stop hobnobbing with fundamentalist elements and come before Parliament for his election as President.

Benazir also chose the occasion to appoint formally Makhdoom Amin Fahim as PPP leader in the National Assembly and lavished praise on him for resisting pressure from various quarters to split the party and align with the rebel Muslim Leaguers, nicknamed Kings party.

She told her party leaders that the PPP would not compromise on its principles of supremacy of Parliament and inviolability of the Constitution in making a decision whether to form the government or sit in the Opposition. There is a price to be paid for principles and I am confident that our parliamentarians elected by the people will stand up to the anti-democratic forces and fight for principles even if that entails sacrifice, she said.

And for the next four years, she struggled against all odds to keep alive her party and opposition to the Musharraf-backed regime. Benazir functioned as the most vocal and effective opposition to Musharraf.

As a politician, she was neither naive nor one who lived in a cocoon. She was fully conscious of the might of the military and institutions such as the Inter-Services Intelligence, which she said has almost become a state within the state. After the 2002 elections, her message to the military and Washington was crystal clear. She would not compromise beyond a certain point irrespective of the consequences.

Benazir had extraordinary insights on the workings of the Islamic fundamentalist forces in the region as well as the military establishment. She has written some of the most brilliant analyses on both the subjects in the Pakistani and international media. In one article, written prior to 9/11, Benazir traced the meteoric rise of the ISI. With concrete examples she demonstrated how the ISI, originally conceived post-1971 under the charge of a brigadier as an intelligence agency to aid the military, rose in stature and power with each passing year. The ISI is today presided over by one of the senior-most generals in the Army.

Incidentally, the Army chief appointed recently by Musharraf was, too, once in charge of the ISI. Benazir faced innumerable obstacles from the military and the ISI each time she was in power. The military led by Musharraf was so paranoid about her that the General actually amended the Constitution through a presidential decree debarring any person from holding the office of Prime Minister for a third time. It was essentially aimed at Benazir though it affected Nawaz Sharif as well. But there was a difference between the former and the latter. Unlike Benazir, Sharif was convicted by a court on such grave charges that he had no chance of becoming Prime Minister even under the existing laws.

In an interaction with The Hindu just before the 2002 elections, Benazir said:

Some people do think that the current situation is similar to that on the eve of the break-up of Pakistan. I hope it is not so critical although it is negative. According to the Hamoodur Rehman war inquiry report [which examined the circumstances leading to birth of Bangladesh], the critical errors made by Islamabad that led to the secession of the eastern wing were the involvement of the military in civil government and the manipulation of peoples will to which the generals refused to transfer power.

Once again, the military is involved in the civil administration and wants to perpetuate its role. And election results are sought to be manipulated through rigging. This is a dangerous combination a la 1971.

Benazir Bhutto nursed a serious grudge against the international community in general and the U.S. in particular for turning a blind eye to the Musharraf regimes kid-glove treatment of the fundamentalist and militant forces in the country. In response to a question from The Hindu on the role played by Pakistan as an ally of the U.S. in its war against terror, she remarked: He also made a number of promises to curb militancy and arrested over a thousand militants. But within weeks, he released all of them without making any case against anyone. He is running with the hare and hunting with the hound.

The PPP leader was one of the leading advocates of India-Pakistan friendship and promotion of people-to-people contacts. Spelling out her vision of the party on India-Pakistan relations, she said in an interaction:

The PPP would like to see the Kashmiri people on both sides of the divide socially united without prejudice to the differing views held by India and Pakistan on the issue of territorial unity.

We should open the borders and have soft borders in Kashmir so that the Kashmiris on both sides can move freely. A final solution of the dispute must take into account the wishes of the Kashmiri people who are the main party.

Benazir Bhutto campaigned relentlessly throughout her second period of exile trying to educate the international community on the dangers of allowing unfettered freedom to the military at the cost of democratic forces in general and the patronage extended by the Pakistan Army to the clergy in particular. I think the international community should positively consider linking the issues of aid, debt relief and trade with Pakistan to the holding of fair and free elections, she told this correspondent in an e-mail interaction in 2004.

She was strident in her views about the jehadi culture and the dangers of potential Talibanisation of Pakistan. Benazir told this correspondent, again in an e-mail interview in August 2002:

The jehadi outfits were spawned and promoted by the security apparatus. It should now control them. There are still elements within the security establishment which are supporting the militants. Musharraf has to take firm measures to curb militancy.

Her words, though prophetic, were not heeded.