TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/110590/1105005.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 5.3 KB | 115 lines

                                                                                WORLD, Page 45

PAKISTAN

The Cycle Is Broken


Benazir Bhutto suffers a humiliating defeat

By EDWARD W. DESMOND -- Reported by Kathleen Evans/Islamabad and
J.F.O. McAllister/Washington


    Despite charges of corruption and mismanagement leveled
against her, Benazir Bhutto and her Pakistan People's Party
were confident of winning at the polls last week. They bought
victory advertisements in the newspapers even before the
results were known. The ads appeared next morning, but Bhutto's
victory did not. The surprise runaway winner was the Islamic
Democratic Alliance, a loose coalition of eight, mostly
right-leaning parties, most of which sat in opposition to the
former Prime Minister during her 20 months in power. The winners
captured 105 of the 216 seats contested for the National
Assembly, while Bhutto's party ended with 45, down from 93 in
1988.

    As the results came in, Bhutto charged fraud. "I am angry
and shocked," she said, "at the way the elections have been
rigged." But those allegations have received little endorsement
so far from two international poll-watching teams. Said interim
Prime Minister and Islamic Democratic Alliance leader Ghulam
Mustafa Jatoi: "We cannot depend on the whims and fantasies of
a young lady, attractive though she may be for the media at
home and abroad. The country has given its verdict."

    The alliance's victory is a relief for President Ghulam
Ishaq Khan, who dismissed Bhutto's government in August, and
for the military leaders who encouraged his move. But Bhutto's
drama is not over. Several pending misconduct cases could bar
her from politics for seven years, and criminal charges against
her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, could send him to prison for 17
years. The coalition, for its part, needs to come up with
solutions to the issues troubling the country, including a
critical economic situation and sour relations with Washington.

    But for the moment, the alliance is savoring its defeat of
Bhutto, who had seemed unstoppable since she returned from
exile in 1986 to restore elected government and avenge her
father's death at the hands of the late President Mohammed Zia
ul-Haq. Bhutto stormed the country as the savior of democracy
and won enough seats in the 1988 race to form a government.

    As it turned out, crusading against military dictatorship
was far easier than running a government. In 20 months Bhutto's
administration accomplished little besides developing a
reputation for corruption, antagonizing the powerful army
leadership and proving incapable of ending ethnic conflict in
her home province of Sind. Citing parts of that record, the
President dissolved her government in August and called for
fresh elections.

    Bhutto fought back. She derided her dismissal as a
"constitutional coup" and labeled the charges against herself
and her husband "persecution." But the appeal to Pakistani
emotions did not work this time; instead, she seems to have
been dragged down by the corruption charges. Said Hussain
Haqqani, spokesman for the Islamic Democratic Alliance: "The
nation is sick of the cycle of martial law and the Bhuttos. The
cycle has to be broken."

    Her opponents also scored with unsubstantiated claims that
Bhutto was somehow responsible for a cutoff in $600 million in
annual U.S. aid earlier this month. The reason for the aid
stoppage was President Bush's inability to certify that
Pakistan does not possess a nuclear weapon -- a requirement
under U.S. law for the aid to continue -- and it had nothing
to do with Pakistan's domestic affairs. Still, alliance leaders
blamed Bhutto for the aid cutoff and at the same time accused
her of cooperating with the U.S. to impede the nuclear-bomb
program. Because of widespread support among Pakistanis for the
covert nuclear program, the point hit home.

    Although Bhutto's allegations of vote fraud have not been
borne out so far by international monitoring groups, the
fairness of the caretaker government and the President during
the campaign left much to be desired. Like Bhutto, the alliance
may discover that winning power is the easy part. Pakistan
needs a new government in a hurry. Foreign-exchange coffers
have reportedly dwindled to a few weeks' reserve, and talks
with the International Monetary Fund for an immediate infusion
of $244 million have stalled. The fund wants Pakistan to move
swiftly in taking some difficult economic steps, including at
least a 40% increase in gasoline prices.

    The new government will also have to move quickly to repair
relations with Washington if Pakistan wants to continue
receiving $600 million in aid each year. In Congress there is
considerable skepticism that President Ishaq Khan played fair,
and lawmakers are likely to require the Bush Administration to
certify that the elections were untainted before releasing the
aid. Perhaps far more important, Islamabad will have to satisfy
Washington on the nuclear issue. The alliance leadership
championed the bomb in its campaign as a counter to the threat
from India, but the U.S. has long viewed the arrival of the
Pakistani bomb as a decided threat to world stability. Given
the problems ahead, Bhutto may be relieved to be sitting in
opposition.