Benazir Bhutto advances rule of the dynasties

Benazir Bhutto advances rule of the dynasties
Voters reject established leaders
By Derek Brown in Islamabad
Thursday November 17, 1988
The Guardian UK

One of the popular chants at Pakistan People's Party rallies was: 'The sun is rising - Be-na-ZIR.' Now the sun has risen, and Benazir Bhutto, at 35, seems set to become the first woman head of government in the Islamic world.

But she is not, even more importantly, the first woman to climb the political peaks of South Asia. Ms Bhutto is part of a recent but solid trend in the subcontinent, in which dynasties are a good deal more important than gender.

The first woman to form a government anywhere in the world was Sirimavo Bandaranaike, who inherited the Sri Lanka Freedom Party on the assassination of her husband in 1960.

She is still fighting for power as a candidate in next month's presidential elections, and in the natural order of things is likely to be succeeded by her son, Anura.

In Islamic Bangladesh, the daughter and widow of past leaders, Sheikh Hasina and Begum Zia, are the leading opponents of General Ershad.

And in India, the prime example of dynastic feminism, Indira Gandhi effortlessly seized control of the Congress Party after the death of her father, Jawaharlal Nehru, and was succeeded in tragic turn by her son, Rajiv. In Pakistan itself, politics as a family business had already been firmly established by the Bhuttos, but not, unusually, by the sons of the last freely elected prime minister.

After the overthrow and later execution of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, Shanawaz and Murtaza were involved in a short-lived guerrilla campaign.

But the Al Zulfiqar movement was a fiasco, and Shanawaz later died, in shady circumstances, in the south of France. Murtaza remains in exile, on the wanted list of the Pakistan police.

For Benazir Bhutto, the political inheritance has been the dominant feature of a life compounded of privilege and persecution.

Born to reign rather than rule, she had a Harvard and Oxford education, and up to 1977 all the perks of a princess. Afterwards, there was prison, house arrest, and exile.

Her return to Pakistan in 1986, after martial law was lifted, was a triumphant reassertion of the Bhutto claim. Vast and delirious crowds acclaimed her, and the party faithful flocked to her banner.

Many of them found, at the cost of their ambitions and ideals, that the daughter had inherited all the father's instinct for personal power.

The re-formation of the PPP in a new pragmatic form was a disillusioning and divisive business. The old populist leftist rhetoric gave way to the sort of realism from which the British Labour Party regularly recoils.

Acceptance of World Bank and International Monetary Fund dogma, accommodation to US regional priorities, and above all the need to reassure the Pakistan army, became the guiding principles.

But there was a price to pay. The fervour of the 1986 return quickly faded, and General Zia ul-Haq's obsessive retention of personal power made him seem immovabe. Ironically, when he was abruptly removed in an aircrash in August the PPP was thrown into crisis.

Their enemy was gone, their target disappeared. Their very reason for existence seemed threatened.

Ms Bhutto's response, as the Zia men regrouped to fight for survival, was to match them at their own game with another ruthless bout of realism. Party stalwarts were dropped, and recent converts rewarded with nominations.

Landlords, industrialists, religious leaders, and anyone with vote-winning potential, was welcomed on board.

As it turned out, it was a winning formula, but it may yet become a dangerous one. Ms Bhutto has to reinforce her claim to the prime ministership, not only be dealing with smaller parties, but by delicate negotiations within her own.

Even greater than these difficulties are the looming problems of governing a country with deep ethnic conflicts, a huge defence budget which for political reasons cannot be cut, a conflict of global significance in next-door Afghanistan, chronic unemployment and poverty, 75 per cent illiteracy, and a population of 105 millions growing at 3.3 per cent annually.

To help cope with the burdens of office, Ms Bhutto has proven reserves of steely will and stamina. Her performance in the election campaign has astonished many observers as they staggered wearily in her wake.

For a lady who had a baby by caesarian section only last month, the sleepless nights, the gruelling cavalcades, and the exhausting rallies, must have been an extraordinary strain. It rarely showed.

Inevitably, if she takes office Ms Bhutto will have to cope with a degree of prurient interest in what remains of her private life.

The two will overlap, especially if she realises her ambition to have two more children. She will be labelled a glamour girl and a working mum, and there will no doubt be as much interest in her domestic arrangements as in her ability to govern.