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The Predictable Failure of Benazir Bhutto
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18146 |
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Section : |
CURRENT ISSUES
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11 / 1990 |
3,781 Words |
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Khalid Duran
Khalid Duran, a Muslim of Moroccan-Spanish heritage, has
taught Islamic studies, sociology, and anthropology at
universities in Pakistan, Austria, Germany, Scandinavia, and
the United States. A profile of him, entitled "Religion
Bridger," appeared in the February 2002 issue of The World &
I. |
Pakistan's Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, democratically elected only two years ago, was deposed in August by decree of President Ghulam Ishaq Khan. The President made use of his constitutional powers, but his alliance with the military leadership left no doubt that this amounted to another army takeover. Benazir Bhutto called it a “quasi-coup”; others speak of a “constitutional coup.”
President Khan charged the Bhutto government with “corruption and inefficiency.” It is a unique case of a government's being dismissed because of such failures so shortly after coming to power. Granted that some of Benazir's cronies could not resist the temptation to amass a fortune, 20 months was too short a time to do so, even while in government.
Few observers have come to Benazir's defense, and it is difficult indeed to be an apologist for her erratic handling of a traditionally unruly nation in a period of heightened turmoil. Pakistan's recent troubles include that chaos in Afghanistan and its spillover into Pakistan, the uprising in Indian-held Kashmir, and Sikh separatism across the border in India's Punjab.
The sacked prime minister has a number of qualities that make it hard to lament her downfall. She seems possessed by a self-conceited sense of mission and an inflated ego that tends to erupt in bouts of hysteria, shrouding the sound judgment of an ambitious young woman who otherwise does not lack political acumen. It matters little whether these traits were instilled in her by her father, executed Prime Minister Z.A. Bhutto, or inherited from him
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