Former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto's assassination will probably increase violence, prolong President Pervez Musharraf's rule and embolden Muslim extremists determined to derail a return to civilian government. Ultimately, Bhutto's death also may unify Pakistanis against both Musharraf's pro-military regime and the growing Islamist militant movement, say political analysts inside and outside the country. "People in Pakistan are enraged, not only Bhutto's party, but the entire nation,'' said Rasul Baksh Rais, a political scientist at Lahore University of Management Sciences. ``There is going to be a backlash.'' The killing of Pakistan's most prominent politician plunged the country into riots and uncertainty just as parliamentary elections planned for Jan. 8 were sparking hopes for the restoration of democracy eight years after Musharraf took over in a coup. Journalist James Rupert, head of Newsday's international bureau in Islamabad, Pakistan began his career abroad as a Peace Corps volunteer, teaching mechanics and welding in Morocco.
James Rupert writes: Bhutto Killing May Extend Musharraf's Rule, Embolden Extremists
Bhutto Killing May Extend Musharraf's Rule, Embolden Extremists
By James Rupert and Ken Fireman
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Dec. 28 (Bloomberg) -- Former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto's assassination will probably increase violence, prolong President Pervez Musharraf's rule and embolden Muslim extremists determined to derail a return to civilian government.
Ultimately, Bhutto's death also may unify Pakistanis against both Musharraf's pro-military regime and the growing Islamist militant movement, say political analysts inside and outside the country.
``People in Pakistan are enraged, not only Bhutto's party, but the entire nation,'' said Rasul Baksh Rais, a political scientist at Lahore University of Management Sciences. ``There is going to be a backlash.''
The killing of Pakistan's most prominent politician plunged the country into riots and uncertainty just as parliamentary elections planned for Jan. 8 were sparking hopes for the restoration of democracy eight years after Musharraf took over in a coup.
``Months of rising tensions in Pakistan make any major assassination potentially far more destabilizing than in the past,'' Anthony Cordesman, an analyst with the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said in a report yesterday. Bhutto's death might ``bring down the government over time, and will create probably months of instability and tension.''
Rioting
Rioting is likely to be widespread, said Hassan Abbas, a Harvard University political scientist. ``Many Pakistanis will blame Musharraf's security forces for permitting, or even backing, the assassination,'' said Abbas.
Pakistan for months had been engulfed in a three-way power struggle featuring Musharraf, Bhutto's Pakistan Peoples Party and the Muslim League's Nawaz Sharif, who Musharraf deposed in 1999. Bhutto and Sharif -- each prime minister twice in the 1980s and 1990s -- both returned from exile to contest the January election.
Musharraf had negotiated with Bhutto over a potential power- sharing arrangement -- encouraged by the U.S. -- that never came to fruition. While Bhutto and Sharif had difficulty finding common ground in opposing Musharraf, the killing may be a unifying impetus.
``I think we will see a national political coalition now,'' Rais said.
State of Emergency
The violence might provide Musharraf an excuse to reinstate a six-week state of emergency that he relaxed Dec. 15 and to cancel the elections. Sharif said after the killing that his party would boycott the elections to honor Bhutto. ``I don't think an election will be possible now,'' Abbas said.
But Milt Bearden, the Pakistan station chief for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency in the 1980s, said Musharraf might try to ride out the storm and go forward with the elections, without reimposing emergency rule.
``He's a tough soldier,'' Bearden said. ``I think his inclination would be to tough it out right now. Obviously, if the situation gets a lot worse, all bets are off.''
Bhutto's killing leaves her party without an heir apparent. The Pakistan Peoples Party was founded by her father Zulfikar Ali Bhutto before he was overthrown and executed by General Mohammad Zia ul-Haq.
One potential replacement is Aitzaz Ahsan, a PPP attorney who led a six-month campaign this year that forced Musharraf to retreat from his initial dismissal of the country's chief justice. Musharraf has kept Ahsan under house arrest since declaring emergency rule in November and purging the judiciary of judges he deemed insufficiently loyal.
`Divisive'
Cordesman said the long-term impact of the assassination may depend on who was responsible for it. If the culprit was al-Qaeda, the Taliban or another Islamic extremist group, that could have unifying effect and ``direct anger towards the forces doing most to drive Pakistan apart and threaten Afghanistan.'' If the killers were a Pakistani sect or ethnic group, ``it could be far more divisive,'' he wrote.
Any enduring mystery, meanwhile, would fuel anti-Musharraf conspiracy theories. ``There are so many potential suspects that we may never know who was responsible,'' said Stephen Cohen, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a policy research group in Washington.
To contact the reporters on this story: James Rupert; Ken Fireman in Washington at kfireman1@bloomberg.net
