PAKISTAN: Bhutto returns after eight years in exile
Updated
After eight years in exile, former Paksitani prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, has returned home. She's arrived in the southern city of Karachi, vowing to restore democracy to her country. Huge crowds of supporters have lined the streets to welcome Mrs Bhutto's return. Police however are on high alert, after assassination threats by Al-Qaeda linked militants.
Presenter: Tom Fayle
Speakers: South Asia analyst Rajan Menon of the New America Foundation in Washington
FAYLE: Professor Menon among these slogans lining the roads in Karachi is one that reads: "Benazir Bhutto, a new hope for Pakistan". Is that how most Pakistanis are viewing her return do you think?
MENON: It certainly indicates that the members of her party, the Pakistan People's Party see her that way. That's important because the party has purchase in all of Pakistan's four provinces. That said, I think that is probably not a view shared by certainly Nawaz Sharif's party, the main opposition party, because he unlike Ms Bhutto is not being allowed to return to Pakistan.
As far as the military is concerned, I think despite the fact that they've had a great deal of unhappiness with her in the past, they need her at the moment to affect some sort of transition to the civilians, as far as the hardcore Islamists are concerned I think they have very little use for her just as they do for Musharraf. But in the main I think that her large electoral base is quite happy about her return.
FAYLE: But has she been damaged politically by that amnesty deal she struck with the general?
MENON: Well yes, the question is whether a successful election that brings her to the post of prime minister will lead that to be forgotten. But there's no question that within her own party there was great unease about this deal cutting with Musharraf because the feeling was not only might she taint herself by doing it, but when in effect Musharraf was reeling and on the ropes and she in effect rang the bell ending the round and needlessly allowed him a second shot as it were.
So I think within her party there was dissatisfaction and certainly among Nawaz Sharif's supporters there was great unhappiness because manifestly the two people, both of whom were alleged to be corrupt by Musharraf's government, one was given amnesty as it were and allowed to return and the other was deported as soon as he set foot on Pakistani soil.
FAYLE: Okay, let's look ahead, I guess the first hurdle that has to be overcome is the Supreme Court. General Musharraf is facing a ruling on eligibility of his recent election as president. But the court could also prove troublesome for Ms Bhutto couldn't it?
MENON: Correct. In the case of General Musharraf, if the court were to say well you've been elected president based on the vote tally, which has been the case, but we will not in fact certify the election as legitimate, then it would throw the country into a political crisis and Musharraf then would have two choices: one is to accept the verdict of the court, or to essentially mount another coup as it were. And he's been very coy about what exactly he will do.
In the case of Ms Bhutto, it is true that the cabinet with President Musharraf's blessing has set aside the corruption charges or essentially nullified them, but whether that's true as a matter of law is not clear.
FAYLE: Now assuming she does get over the hurdle of the Supreme Court, parliament will be dissolved next month and there will be a caretaker administration until elections in the new year, and then I guess we'll see the real fruit of whatever agreement between the general and Ms Bhutto has been worked out?
MENON: Correct, and then we'll see the interesting phenomenon of how two rather political powerful personalities; one elected by the four provincial assemblies plus the bicameral national legislature...an indirectly elected president and a directly elected prime minister, what the balance of power will be between them and how they accommodate one another. There's no question in my mind that at the end of the day while Musharraf would have created a situation where he can continue as president, he will emerge from this in a somewhat diminished political position than was the case before.
FAYLE: But many people in Pakistan, not least among Ms Bhutto's own PPP argue that the former prime minister has been outplayed politically and General Musharraf is not a man who will in the end share power. I've seen him described in military terms as believing in the "unity of command"?
MENON: Yes I think there's something to that because even though he will have taken off the uniform as it were and handed over power to a new army chief, that army chief is his hand-picked person. So in a sense, to put it crudely, Musharraf still controls the guns and given the record of Pakistani military serial intervention in politics that's hardly a trivial matter.
