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Analysis: Pakistan's Frayed Politics

Council on Foreign Relations

January 2, 2008
Author: Jayshree Bajoria

Following former prime minister Benazir Bhutto’s assassination on December 27 and the ensuing violence and social unrest, Pakistan’s parliamentary elections have been rescheduled (AFP) for February 18. While Pakistan’s opposition parties condemned the delay (The Australian), Bhutto’s assassination has further highlighted the chinks in Pakistan’s domestic political consensus; political parties that are hardly democratic in the western sense, elections fought and won more on traditional alliances than ideology, and questions about the balance between president, prime minister, and judiciary. CFR President Richard N. Haass, in a new interview with CFR.org’s Bernard Gwertzman, says, “I don’t see Pakistan likely to come together in a form of a highly efficient democracy. I just don’t see the building blocks there at present.”

The death of Bhutto, who carried the hopes of many as the best bet for restoration of democracy in the nation, also has emphasized the dynastic nature of her political party, the Pakistan People's Party (PPP). Benazir took over as PPP chief after the party founder, her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was executed by the army in 1979. Now, with her death, the reins have been handed over (BBC) to her nineteen-year old son Bilawal, with her husband Asif Ali Zardari in a kind of regent’s role. Zardari will lead the party until Bilawal completes his studies at Oxford University. While Zardari will not himself contend in elections, he is expected to name the prime minister if PPP wins a majority. This raises the possibility, reports the Times of India, that the next Pakistani prime minister could be a puppet controlled by Zardari behind the scenes.

Meanwhile, Nawaz Sharif, another ex-prime minister and head of the Pakistan’s Muslim League-Nawaz, also clings to personality-driven politics.

Read the rest of this article on the cfr.org website.

Copyright 2008 by the Council on Foreign Relations. This material is republished on GlobalSecurity.org with specific permission from the cfr.org. Reprint and republication queries for this article should be directed to cfr.org.