Pakistan Reader# 488, 27 December 2022
D. Suba Chandran
The PPP will march on, which would be Benazir’s legacy. And that of her father – Zulfikar. The biggest change in the last 15 years would be – the party being acceptable to the Establishment.
It was on the evening of 27 December 2007, Benazir Bhutto, a former prime minister of Pakistan was assassinated in Rawalpindi. She was getting ready to face the general elections scheduled in 2008; it was an election campaign rally she was at, when the assassin shot her and detonated himself.
So, who killed Benazir Bhutto? The question has not been answered, and will never be, given Pakistan’s record in investigating the top assassinations starting from its first prime minister Liaqat Ali Khan. The latter was assassinated in October 1951, in the same place where Benazir Bhutto was also killed. After multiple investigations and accusations pointing fingers ranging from the TTP to Musharraf, Benazir’s assassination case has not reached a conclusion, as was the Liaqat assassination case. The “people in the establishment” were accused of being responsible for Benazir’s assassination. A BBC report, titled, “Benazir Bhutto assassination: How Pakistan covered up killing,” dated 27 December 2017, provides more information on the possible suspects, and loopholes in the investigation. The above report, authored by Own Bennet Jones quotes Bilawal Bhutto, Pakistan’s present foreign minister telling “Musharraf exploited this entire situation to assassinate my mother…He purposely sabotaged her security so that she would be assassinated and taken off the scene.” The same report makes an alarming note: “Asked whether rogue elements within the establishment could have been in touch with the Taliban about the killing, General Pervez Musharraf replied: ‘Possibility. Yes indeed. Because the society is polarised on religious lines.’”
One would never know, who killed Benazir Bhutto, and why. There have been numerous conspiracy theories, multiple investigations by agencies within and outside Pakistan, legal cases and judgements. But the verdict is still unclear on who and why.
The second question is: Where is the PPP today, 15 years later? The party could form the government at the national level in the 2008 elections and in the Sindh provincial assembly. Zardari could lead the party at the national level, and ensure that the PPP government could complete its tenure, without any interruption. In fact, it was to Zardari’s credit, the PPP became the first democratically elected government since independence to complete its tenure. Though the party could not repeat the magic of 2008 numbers at the national level in the subsequent elections in 2013 and 2018, it could retain Sindh provincial assembly, and remain a potent force at the national level.
PPP’s critics would argue that the party has become a regional one, with a strong performance only from Sindh. One could also extend the same argument to the PML-N; the Sharifs’ party has a weak political presence outside of Punjab. Only Imran’s PTI has performed well and has found political acceptance in KP, Sindh (especially Karachi) and Punjab, and that too in the last elections. Whether PTI’s performance was because of Establishment’s political engineering during 2018 would be revealed in the 2023 elections, when Imran and his party would contest without the Deep State’s patronage. To conclude the second question, the PPP has not performed badly during the last 15 years.
The third question is: What about the party leadership 15 years later? Within the party, the baton has passed to the next generation. Bilawal Bhutto, now Pakistan’s foreign minister in the coalition government, has been groomed as the prince. With an ageing and ailing Zardari, the PPP seem to have accepted Bilawal as its next leader. Unlike the other major political parties, from the ANP to PML-N, there has not been a problem of succession within the PPP during the last 15 years.
The final question would be: What is Benazir’s legacy? After the assassination of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, when Zia was the ruler, it was not an easy phase for the party during the 1980s and its young leader – Benazir. She had to be away in exile, before returning in the mid-1980s. Neither the 1990s was easier for her, when Benazir got dismissed twice as the Prime Minister. In the 2000s, she had to leave again, when Pakistan was ruled by Musharraf. From her father’s hanging until her assassination in 2007, she held the party together, despite the Establishment despising her. Benazir’s assassination, as explained above, has not brought the party down. The PPP will march on into the 2020s, which would be Benazir’s legacy. And that of her father – Zulfikar. The biggest change in the last 15 years would be – the party being acceptable to the Establishment today. And that would be Zardari’s legacy to the PPP.
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