Future of democracy uncertain

Forty days is a long time. But with electioneering on hold for roughly six weeks or thereabouts, and Pakistan's growing disquiet muted by the jackboot, the questions raised by Benazir Bhutto's assassination are manifold. Amid all the finger pointing, the innuendo and the often harsh critiques of Bhutto's place in history and her record in governance, this politician who walked a fine line in recent years - between appealing to western concerns about the rising tide of extremism in her country and at the same time being one with the conservative core of her own people - may become the unwitting catalyst for change.

The question that is being asked both within the Pakistan Peoples Party that she refashioned in her own image and on the streets is whether her assassination was meant to dwarf her party or her nation. The controversial will that she is reported to have left behind, a handwritten note on a piece of paper that people who have been allowed to glimpse say is written in green ink, is central to the debate.

It is the first document that Scotland Yard, brought in by Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf, has asked to see. Left with a female servant, it unequivocally handed the keys of the kingdom to Asif Ali Zardari, a husband she adored, who paid the price for her refusal to do business with the establishment by spending 11 years in jail. Except, deeply distrusted and out of the party hierarchy, it is he who must guide the party through the challenges that lie ahead.

Many believe that the gloves will be off once the 40-day mourning period ends. Others insist elections and the prospect of a stab at power after years in the wilderness could end the internal debate on whether Zardari is the best man for the job.

In pitchforking their oldest son Bilawal into Pakistan's murky politics as the man expected to pull his country back from the abyss, staring anarchy and disintegration in the face, Zardari may have deflected some of the heat. Certainly, in formally adding the doomed moniker Bhutto to his name, Bilawal has become the notional leader of Pakistan's dynastic and yet only progressive pan-Pakistani political force, fulfilling the prophetic cry on the streets - as one Bhutto dies, another is born.

No standing

But waiting in the wings are Murtaza's children - 26- year-old Fatima who blames her aunt for not doing enough to protect her father and 18-year-old Zulfikar, half-Arab but a Bhutto nonetheless. In Pakistan's patriarchal tradition, they are the Bhutto heirs says Benazir's estranged uncle Mumtaz Bhutto. But he has no standing within the party. Whether it has a resonance and a relevance outside that world is to be seen.

Many see the party's acquiesence to Benazir's will as a manoeuvre to stall such ambitious outsiders from hijacking the party. Zardari's reported refusal to allow Zulfikar access to the Bhutto male sanctum sanctorum in the family seat Naudero is an indication he was all too alive to the threat. But Benazir had no enmity with her favourite niece. Fatima's column "Goodbye Wadi Bua" is a deeply moving requiem and a call to end years of bitterness.

Therefore, while the challenge from within the family has been met head-on, the future of the party as a cohesive force for change may be in jeopardy. While in the past Benazir sought accommodation not conflict with radical forces in Afghanistan and Kashmir, the time for appeasement may be long gone. In addition, a Zardari or a party leader like Makhdoom Ameen Fahim, both seen as wooed by the establishment to head a PPP minus Bhutto only reinforce the perception that this new caucus within the PPP will sup with the generals.

Power-sharing arrangement

Can such a strategy serve an anti-establishment party that draws support from the masses when those who carefully built the military-mullah-madrassa complex did away with the very woman whom they saw as threatening to re-arrange that power structure? No question that under Benazir, the PPP chose to go with the same power sharing arrangement as a re-entry point.

But her exit from the scene is a signal Musharraf had no intention of ever allowing "the untrustworthy" player the upper hand in the arrangement. Washington's refusal to heed Zardari's call for a UN probe indicates they are unwilling to embarrass their ally Musharraf, afraid perhaps of what the UN probe will find. Despite being outmanoeuvred by the regime's unwillingness to protect Benazir, without her as their democratic prop they have had to revert to Musharraf alone to safeguard America's interests in the region, rewarding him with the much awaited F-16 deal in return for a greater American troop presence in the troubled north-west.

In naming Baitullah Mehsud as being behind the assassination George W. Bush has the perfect justification to stay on in Pakistan-Afghanistan. But with the PPP saying the gunman in the video footage could not have been the killer, that the bullets came from way higher, Pakistan is set for more political bloodletting. Musharraf says he does not have blood on his hands. Perhaps. The question then is, who does?

Neena Gopal is an analyst on Asia.