Recently re-emerging on the international political scene is exiled former Prime Minister of Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto. This summer has seen her holding secret meetings with Pakistan President General Musharraf to discuss power-sharing agreements. But just who is this woman who is negotiating to return to her country as Prime Minister of Pakistan?
The daughter of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto — co-founder of the Pakistan People’s Party and Prime Minister of Pakistan between 1973 and 1977, Benazir Bhutto returned from her studies at Harvard and Oxford universities to find her country under martial law and her father overthrown and arrested by General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq in a bloodless coup. She herself was placed under house arrest.
During her years in America, Bhutto had participated in protests against the Vietnam war and had been inspired by the freedom enjoyed by the American people and press to demonstrate against and criticize their government . Although not initially interested in following her father’s footsteps into politics, when he was hanged in 1979, she became leader of the PPP, whose brand of Islamist Socialism was the first to attract rural laborers, workers and the middle class to actively participate in political life.
While under house arrest and solitary confinement, Bhutto denounced Zia and rallied political support. Released in 1984, exiled in Britain until 1986, she returned to Pakistan to find thousands of supporters with whom she organized mass protests of civil disobedience to pressure Zia to relinquish office and call national elections. In 1988 after Zia was killed in a plane crash, elections were held. At age 35, Bhutto became the youngest person and the first woman to hold the post of Prime Minister in a Muslim state.
Under the Islamic Socialism of the PPP, Bhutto placed an emphasis on food for the hungry, health care, jobs, slum clearance, a monthly minimum wage and eliminating discrimination against women. She started the Peoples Program for economic uplift of the masses and lifted a ban on student and trade unions. She also announced plans to set up women’s police stations, courts and development banks. Although many of these promises were not fulfilled due to fierce opposition, her party did succeed in initiating legislation to repeal the Zina ordinance, which made adultery punishable by flogging and stoning.
During her years of governance, Bhutto faced the extreme patriarchy of Pakistani political culture, was criticized for campaigning while pregnant, was betrayed by close political allies, including her own brother, and was repeatedly accused of corruption and mismanagement. Bhutto was dismissed and re-elected to power twice. Her decision to appoint her husband to the cabinet of investment minister proved especially controversial and he too would be imprisoned for allegedly pocketing government money.
To this day, from a self-imposed exile in London, Bhutto denounces all charges against her as politically motivated. The opposition to her does not seem to have worn her down. Critics see her recent negotiations with military leader Musharraf as a betrayal of her democratic roots. Others see their possible collaboration as a good omen for democracy. A powerful, controversial political figure, Bhutto has always vowed to return to Pakistan and to power. Her recent negotiations with Musharraf indicate that time is near.
This article was published Wednesday, September 5, 2007.
