Without her, Pakistan’s
already weak opposition, damaged by scores of arrests and in-fighting, has no
champion against Musharraf’s election chicanery. The general had placed
journalists under severe restrictions, stuffed election oversight positions
with his allies, and tossed his opponents off the nation’s leading courts. As
Ahmed Bilal Mehboob, executive director of the nonprofit Pakistan Institute of
Legislative Development and Transparency, toldTheWashington Post: "The elections are going to
be rigged. The only thing that remains to be seen is how extensive that rigging
will be."
Although Bhutto had, for months, considered making an
alliance with Musharraf, in recent weeks she had tried to lead the opposition
in both decrying Musharraf’s tactics and preparing for the January 8 vote. In fact,
Bhutto’s party might well have won. Numerous polls taken in the fall showed
Musharraf’s popularity plummeting. One poll taken in September by the
International Republican Institute showed Musharraf had a favorable rating of
only 21 percent, and only 16 percent of Pakistanis would vote for his party. (By
comparison, Bhutto has posted much higher favorable ratings in polls.) And even
if her party had lost to Musharraf’s because of vote-fixing, Bhutto’s personal popularity
meant she could have instigated widespread street protests after the election,
which might have galvanized public support against the general.
With Bhutto gone, Musharraf will have far more freedom to
operate. Her party could still win the upcoming election, riding a sympathy
vote, but it is just as possible that her supporters will fragment without
their leader, since Bhutto herself had worked to block rivals from amassing
power bases within the party. Her supporters could disintegrate into street
violence. Some could target Musharraf, whom they might view as the hand behind
the bombing, given that the killing took place near the heart of Pakistan’s
military headquarters. Meanwhile, the
other main opposition figure, Nawaz Sharif, does not have the same personal
magnetism as Bhutto. Sharif has just announced that his party will boycott the
January 8 vote, but it will be harder for the bland, portly Sharif to rally
crowds in the streets after the election.
Worse, the general himself may play on Bhutto’s death to
claim that only he can lead the battle against militants and restore stability.
The chaos around Bhutto’s killing could provide Musharraf the opportunity to
postpone the election and re-impose a state of emergency he recently lifted. (The New York Times,citing a Musharraf aide, reports
that "no decision has been made on whether to delay the elections.") Musharraf
could simultaneously assure the United
States, his major patron, that he will use
the emergency period to finally crack down on insurgents operating with
near-total impunity along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. Some in Washington would be
pleased: The Bush administration has been pressuring Musharraf for years to
lead such an operation.
Unfortunately, Musharraf has already proven incapable of this task:
Reimposing a state of emergency would hardly restore Pakistan’s stability. As TheNew
York Times recently reported, the Bush administration now admits the
Pakistani military has wasted and diverted massive amounts of the American aid
designed to strengthen the battle against Al Qaeda and the Taliban--aid that
has cost some $5 billion. Unsurprising, then, that the White House itself admitted
in an intelligence assessment this summer that Musharraf’s supposed battle
against terrorists was failing miserably. Yet at the same time, Musharraf has
neutered Pakistan’s
political culture, helping create a vacuum in which there are few other credible
leaders besides Sharif and the slain Bhutto. With Bhutto gone, Musharraf may--surprise--again
fill that vacuum. That could be the greatest tragedy of all.
Joshua Kurlantzick is a special correspondent for The New Republic.