U.S. News & World Report

October 22, 1990
OUTLOOK; DATELINE; Vol. 109, No. 16; p. 22
Karachi, Pakistan

By Emily MacFarquhar

Benazir Bhutto, her head sheathed in white silk, scribbles notes in a cavernous ex-colonial courtroom as her lawyer calls for the dismissal of a corruption case against her. The next day, she drives to a criminal-detention center to visit her husband, who has just been arrested on charges of extortion and kidnapping. The following night, she rouses a frenzied crowd of People's Party faithful in a Karachi slum by proclaiming herself "the representative of the oppressed."

The recently ousted Prime Minister of Pakistan is spending nearly as much time these days on her legal defense as on her campaign for re-election in the balloting scheduled for October 24. In fact, these efforts are two sides of the same coin, since the main penalty she faces is exclusion from politics for seven years. "I think their game plan is to disqualify me," Bhutto told U.S. News. "They" are the troika of President, Army and opposition who threw her out of office in early August and initiated a so-called accountability process to discredit her in time for the election.

Just two months ago, this seemed to be a plausible strategy. Polls showed a majority in favor of her dismissal and a widespread belief that her government was both ineffective and corrupt. But the plan has plainly backfired. One reason is that the interim government, consisting of sworn Bhutto enemies, has appeared as inept and self-serving as the regime it replaced. Another is that the legal cases against her were ill-chosen, ill-prepared and unduly complex. There was no single, dramatic abuse like a Watergate break-in and no obvious smoking gun; as the trackers of the money trails of Ferdinand Marcos and Rajiv Gandhi have discovered, corruption is notoriously difficult to prove. But the main reason that the prosecution of Bhutto has boomeranged is that in a country where corruption is endemic, it is seen to be unfair.

The result has been to thrust Bhutto into the clothes that fit her the best, martyr's weeds. Now it is her accusers who are on the defensive, and it is their harassment of Bhutto that has become the central issue in the campaign. Pundits are saying that if elections are held next week -- a huge if -- the People's Party may win the same plurality it did in 1988. This would make Bhutto a contender for power once again.

The big question is whether the Army, which has been feuding with Bhutto nonstop for two years and which ruled Pakistan on its own for most of the past 40, could tolerate her return to office. The top brass is weighing its options, all of them bad. Canceling the elections and reimposing martial law would bring a cutoff of U.S. aid, already imperiled by new evidence that Pakistan's nuclear-weapons program violates U.S. nonproliferation laws. Postponing elections or disqualifying Bhutto from running would very likely have the same effect -- not just with the United States but with other foreign-aid donors as well.

Leaders of the anti-Bhutto coalition -- a motley crew of People's Party defectors, allies of the late military ruler Zia ul-Haq and religious parties -- are reported to be taking out pre-vote insurance by arresting opponents, transferring officials and dispensing large sums of money as "development" grants. The Army is also covering its bets by distancing itself from both the interim government and the President and by refraining from attacking its People's Party nemesis.

Bhutto, meanwhile, is preparing her own fallback by hinting that she might prefer a spell in opposition to resuming office under the sway of a hostile President and Army. She will be lucky to have such a choice.