 |
Policemen detain a supporter of opposition Jamaat-e-Islami party during a protest against emergency rule in Peshawar. (Reuters' photo) |
Pakistan's main liberal opposition leader Benazir Bhutto is mobilizing proponents and other party opposition leaders to defy General Musharraf's emergency rule, showing up as the country’s most promising popular leader and democracy guardian amid a vehemently tightened grip on all other influential opposition leaders in the US-ally country.
Defying her mild short "house arrest”, shortly lifted up on the same day, and enjoying what some analysts see as an American "immunity”, Bhutto could easily speak to her crowded supporters and media in the street in her Islamabad residence, unlike any other opposition leaders who were either detained or strictly placed under tightened house arrest.
US Support
| Unlike any other opposition leader, Bhutto could easily speak to her crowded supporters and media. |
Backed by the US, and showing up as a protagonist struggling for democracy and civilian rule restoration, Bhutto is now playing freely on Pakistan's political stage on her own calling for uplifting the emergency state she sees as "a step back to dictatorship".
"Bhutto has got a strong US support, and that's why she is given freedom of movement, while other leading opposition leaders are not," Syed Saleem Shahzad, Pakistan Bureau chief of Asia Times Online told IslamOnline.net.
The Pakistani police justified Bhutto’s very short house arrest, which was lifted seemingly per a US strong request, that the authorities feared a big suicide bombing against her massive rally planned in Rawalpindi on Friday, Nov.9.
The Pakistani government, which is very keen to keep her US tranquil relationships unscratched, seems very cautious in terms of applying the newly imposed emergency measures against Bhutto.
"Any effort by the government to silence her would likely spark just the kind of widespread public response that could make Gen. Musharraf's continuation in power untenable," said the leading Wall Street Journal.
However, Bhutto is ostensibly incapable of broadening her influence over the country's major political players and rivals, who are either under house arrest or on the run.
Opposition Crackdown
| Benazir Bhutto is the only politician in Pakistan at the moment who can bring hundreds of thousands of people out onto the streets. |
Cricket-star-turned-politician Imran Khan, leader of the Pakistan Tehrik Insaf party (PTI) went hiding just after Pakistani police had placed him under house arrest in his Lahore's residence.
Interviewing him in hiding, the BBC's Chris Morris said: "He doesn't deny that Benazir Bhutto is the only politician in Pakistan at the moment who can bring hundreds of thousands of people out onto the streets."
Khan joined the other major political players' calls upon Pakistanis to resist Musharraf's state of emergency. "If we don't resist, it will take Pakistan on the path of destruction," he said in a video broadcast aired on a private TV channel.
Qazi Hussain Ahmed, leader of the powerful Islamic Group, Jamaat-e-Islam, and chairman of the MMA (for United Council of Action), which is a coalition of six Islamic political parties, was held under house arrest since emergency rule declared on Saturday.
"General Pervez Musharraf has imposed martial law in the country for completion of US agenda and named it emergency. In emergency, constitution is not held in abeyance nor any one has any right to remove the chief justice of Pakistan," he said addressing his proponents of Jamaat-e-Islam during his last general meeting before being under house arrest.
Iftikhar Muhammed Chaudhry, the country's Chief Justice of the
Supreme Court, was ousted, placed under house arrest, and then moved out of Islamabad to Quetta after defying Musharraf’s emergency rule.
Chaudhry, who also has been calling for mass protests against emergency rule, had been suspended by Musharraf for four months, which sparked widespread protests nationwide, before the influential Supreme Court reinstated him.
Leaders of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), were also either arrested or placed under house arrest in Peshawar and NWFP. Party leader Nawaz Sharif was forced back to exile just a few hours after returning to the country despite relying on a Supreme Court rule allowing his return.
Nawaz's party seems less influential in the current political game in which almost all opposition leaders except Bhutto are vigorously driven away.
Bhutto’s Cloudy Stance
| "Bhutto is siding with Musharraf, not the opposition. She just wants to appear as a champion defending democracy." |
Some analysts observe Bhutto's reaction towards the emergency state as very weak, attributing that to her power-sharing deal with Musharraf, which –however shaky–Bhutto sees as an advantage that would help her discard away a heavy load of corruption charges haunting her since she was ousted and opted for a self-exile eight years ago.
"Bhutto is siding with Musharraf, not the opposition. She just wants to appear as a champion defending democracy," said Asia Times expert Shahzad.
Last month, Bhutto and Musharraf reached a power-sharing agreement, which would help Bhutto reserve herself a prestigious position in the upcoming general elections, originally scheduled next January but later on rescheduled in February by Musharraf.
Musharraf and Bhutto agree only about one major US request, which is to combat resurgent Taliban-style militants in Pakistan that pose a "time bomb" against the neighboring Afghanistan in particular.
Who Will Survive?
| Musharraf is so devoted to his military mind as a General who thinks that force only can create any desired reality on the ground. |
The US supports Bhutto since she is identified as the country's main "liberal" leader who is calling for eliminating the role of religion in Pakistan as well as fighting "Islamic extremism," which the US sees as the main challenge galvanizing attacks against US and foreign troops in the neighboring chaos-mired Afghanistan.
"Developing a united front between the Pakistani military leadership and moderate civilian politicians against the extremists remains the most promising path out of Pakistan’s current crisis," Lisa Curtis of the Heritage Foundation told Pakistani Daily Times.
Musharraf is so devoted to his military mind as a General who thinks that only the language of force can create any desired reality on the ground.
"He's always seen himself as the savior of Pakistan and the indispensable leader," Stephen Cohen of the Brookings Institution in Washington told Reuters.
"It may come to push rather than anything else -- it's hard to predict these things -- but the system bends only so far before it starts to break," Cohen said.
Bhutto came back from Dubai just after the declaration of emergency state without being arrested or stopped at the airport, which tells volumes about her promising prospects in the coming few days or weeks.
The Pakistani opposition landscape is apparently open now for Bhutto to lead a change and speak out the Pakistanis' voices calling for reform and restoring democracy, the word they have been so long craving for.
|
