WASHINGTON - The assassination of Benazir Bhutto, the feisty, Harvard-educated leader of Pakistan's largest opposition party threatens to destroy US plans for a gradual transition to democracy from an increasingly unpopular government dominated by the military.
For more than a year, US officials have pushed for elections in Pakistan to restore legitimacy to the government of General Pervez Musharraf, a military ruler and key ally in the war on terror who appears to be losing his grip on the country.
As major street protests to Musharraf intensified over the summer, US diplomats worked behind the scenes to negotiate Bhutto's return, persuading Musharraf to offer amnesty for pending corruption charges against her which cleared the way for her return without facing arrest. US officials tried to ham mer out a power-sharing agreement between the two, a move one former US official said was done at the request of Musharraf and Bhutto.
When that failed, State Department officials touted the upcoming elections as the main vehicle for positive change in Pakistan.
Many in Pakistan and abroad expected Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party to win a significant number of seats in the Jan. 8 parliamentary elections, potentially forging a more stable, inclusive government comprising Musharraf and opposition parties. Analysts and US officials hoped such an alliance would put Pakistan on a new and moderate path, uniting its powerful military and its largest secular opposition groups against Islamic extremists who target the United States and Western interests, and threaten to drag the country into chaos.
But the brazen murder of Bhutto, who was killed as she left a rally in Rawalpindi, threatens the prospects for Pakistan's democratic transition and with it the US effort to stabilize a crucial, nuclear-armed ally.
"It has dealt a body blow to that strategy," said Daniel Markey, a member of the State Department's policy planning staff from 2002 to early 2007. "All the calculations included Benazir as part of the game."
With rumors of the government's hand in Bhutto's slaying running high, the elections could actually reverse progress toward a stable coalition government, analysts said. In a country rife with conspiracy theories, members of Bhutto's party are already accusing Musharraf of being unwilling or unable to protect her, stirring anger and resentment that could make cooperation between Musharraf and the party impossible.
Rehman Malik, Bhutto's top security adviser and a former senior official with Pakistan's Federal Investigation Agency, had already accused Musharraf's government of supplying Bhutto's convoy with faulty bomb-jamming devices. Joseph Szlavik Jr., president of Scribe Strategies & Advisors and a political adviser to Bhutto, said the government initially resisted allowing Bhutto to bring in her own bullet-proof cars.
"I doubt that PPP will be willing to work with Musharraf anymore," said Hassan Abbas, a former aide to Musharraf who is currently at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. Abbas said the security failure was so damaging that Musharraf's political future has been gravely wounded.
Christine Fair, a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation, a Santa Monica-based think tank, also said it is now "impossible" for elections to restore Musharraf's legitimacy.
"Her death will defer and probably completely undermine Musharraf's ability to legitimize what he has done in recent years through an electoral process that will appear even modestly as 'free and fair,' " she said. "There will be those who hold him accountable even if he and his [security] services are innocent."
But US officials seemed to hold out hope yesterday for the best-case scenario: that elections would go forward quickly, and that a new leader of the PPP could emerge who could win a swath of seats in parliament on a moderate platform that draws on Bhutto's martyrdom - without her sometimes divisive personality or the taint of corruption that dogged her campaign.
"You could imagine a rosy scenario," said Markey, the former State Department official. "A much less divisive figure [could emerge] that could work with Musharraf, and work with the army."
Bhutto, however, never anointed a successor, and it was unclear yesterday whether the massive, pro-Western political movement that she inherited from her father would unite behind a new leader or simply fall apart.
Yesterday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made brief condolence calls to two men who are considered likely candidates to replace Bhutto: her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, and her deputy, Makhodoom Amin Fahim.
But Zardari suffers from the same taint of corruption that plagued his wife, hampering her return to politics after two previous stints as her country's prime minister. Analysts say Fahim lacks the charisma and political strength he would need to lead a party that has always had a Bhutto at its helm, but US officials did not dismiss him right away.
"He will be tested, and tested quickly," said one official, speaking on the condition of anonymity. "How strong a leader was Harry Truman after Roosevelt died?"
Other possible candidates include Aitzaz Ahsan, a well-respected attorney and PPP member who was at the forefront of lawyers' opposition to Musharraf's political removal of a Supreme Court justice earlier this year - an effort that catalyzed historic protests to Musharraf's government and military rule. But Ahsan has already called for a boycott of the election, and has denounced the idea of joining a coalition government with Musharraf.
Another potential PPP leader is Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao, a former Pakistan interior minister who leads a breakaway faction of the PPP. He was a target in a recent, unsuccessful, suicide attack.
Last night, it was unclear whether the PPP would participate in upcoming elections, or if the elections would take place.
Pakistan's ambassador in Washington, Mahmoud Ali Durrani, said he believed the elections would go forward. But he added that "this depends a lot on the opposition leadership in Pakistan." Durrani also said that Pakistan's government "has done its best" to protect Bhutto.
Nawaz Sharif, head of another opposition party who returned from exile, announced yesterday that he would boycott the vote. Four of his supporters were killed yesterday in a separate attack.
Marvin Weinbaum, a former State Department Pakistan analyst, said elections "don't serve anyone's purpose now," adding that if Musharraf wins big it will only add to the suspicion he is responsible for the assassination.
Despite yesterday's turmoil - and questions about Musharraf's own political survival - Weinbaum said the White House is still backing Musharraf. US officials are still hoping that elections will salvage Musharraf's government.
"No political system can last long without having legitimacy in the eyes of its people," said Tom Casey, a spokesman for the State Department.
© Copyright 2007 Globe Newspaper Company.
