Summer 1996
PROFILE

Daughter of Destiny

REFLECTIONS ON BENAZIR BHUTTO, THE YOUNGEST AND ONLY FEMALE PRIME MINSTER OF A MUSLIM COUNTRY, PAKISTAN
by Abid Imam

The procession of people seemed endless. Thousands had spilled onto the Mall Road in Lahore, Pakistan on April 10, 1986, welcoming Benazir Bhutto, the daughter of the hanged president Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. Benazir was returning to Pakistan after having lived in exile in Europe for over two years. Many Pakistanis were thrilled that the military regime controlled by General Zia-ul-Haq, President and Martial Law Administrator of Pakistan, was finally going to face a serious challenge. That the challenge would be spearheaded by a glamorous, young, Western-educated woman was of even greater satisfaction to many.

Benazir Bhutto is the daughter of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who founded the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and was elected Prime Minister of Pakistan in 1973, until he was arrested in a coup d’etat orchestrated by General Zia in 1977. Bhutto was sentenced to death on a legitimate murder charge later that year and was hanged in 1979. Bhutto had been tremendously popular with the Pakistani masses, but became increasingly autocratic and dealt ruthlessly with his critics and opponents. Despite his intolerant nature, many in Pakistan saw him as a martyr after his execution. By virtue of being Bhutto’s daughter, Benazir was guaranteed a substantial following without having to cultivate one of her own, which would help catapult her into power in 1988.

Benazir had just completed her studies in Government at Radcliffe and later, Oxford, and had returned to Pakistan when the coup occurred, ousting her father from power. She did not attempt to leave the country and stayed behind with her mother and sister Sanam. Here began the most traumatic period in Benazir’s life, during which she spent most of her time under house arrest and the remaining time in various prisons around the country. After her father’s hanging, the leadership of the PPP was handed to Nusrat with Benazir wielding a measure of influence. The Bhutto dynasty was in the making.

Benazir and her mother struggled to oust General Zia’s dictatorial regime, but were thwarted at every corner. Benazir underwent intermittent imprisonment, including house arrest, from 1977 to 1984. Benazir was released from prison and eventually allowed to go abroad in 1984.

While in exile, Benazir tried to muster support from the American and the British governments. The Western governments, had no qualms about supporting a dictator in Pakistan because he was a useful ally in the fight against the Soviet Union. But fate was on her side.

She made her grand return to Pakistan in 1986 and decided to sort out her personal life. In her autobiography, Daughter of Destiny, she writes that she was too busy to find a suitable husband in her own way and settled for an arranged marriage. In December 1987, she married Asif Ali Zardari, who belonged to a family with political pretensions but no serious clout. Zardari was well known as a polo-passionate, unemployed playboy, but Benazir didn’t find him objectionable and the marriage went ahead.

In May 1988 Zia abruptly dissolved the Parliament he had established in 1985, which had excluded all political parties including the PPP, invoking the controversial Eigth Amendment which gave him extraordinary power and latitude. He announced that he would hold elections later that year, but in a bizarre twist of fate, Zia’s plane exploded while it was airborne, killing him and most of the senior members of the military. Zia’s fateful death remains a mystery even today.

Elections went ahead as scheduled. The PPP, lead by Benazir with Nusrat at her side, won the most seats and managed to wield enough alliances to form a government, thus making Benazir Bhutto the youngest Head of Government ever at the age of 35 and the first woman to lead a Muslim country in modern history.

Benazir won primarily on the strength of being the daughter of a former president, yet she lacked the political experience he possessed before he earned the chance of ruling the nation. The only two significant offices she had ever held before catapulting into the seat of Prime Minister of Pakistan were the Presidency of the Oxford Union Debating Society and the Chairmanship of the PPP. As she mentions in her own autobiography, "For all that I held degrees in government from Harvard and Oxford, I was not a politician."

Her first stint in office was a disaster. Her husband and most other members of her enormous Cabinet were financially corrupt with her tacit assent, resulting in the formation of a strong opposition to her tenuous rule. But in 1990, before she could bungle even more, her government was dismissed by President Ishaq Khan, the man who ensured that elections took place after Zia’s death, and elections were called. She lost the elections decisively and immediately cried foul. But by 1993 the government at the time lost favor with the President Khan and elections were called for the third time since 1988. The 1993 elections were very close, but Benazir was able to win a majority of seats having built up a name for herself.

Benazir’s second tenure has lasted longer than her first and has exposed her as a leader more interested in ruling rather than governing. Ranked by the London-based Sunday Times as the most powerful woman in the world (beating out Hillary Clinton and Queen Elizabeth), she has reigned with an iron fist, intolerant of criticism from the opposition and the media. Her ministers and husband continue to misuse the Pakistani exchequer as though it consisted of their personal savings. She has also sanctioned all sorts of police brutality in the major port city of Karachi, a city which has been in a state of virtual anarchy for over a year. Under her rule the country’s economic growth has slowed considerably while inflation has soared, although she has pursued a prudent policy of privatizing state-run industries. She has made countless jaunts abroad accompanied by large entourages and seems to be more of an international celebrity than a Prime Minister. But despite her dismal record and widespread unpopularity she has effectively resisted being toppled. That may be her greatest achievement.

Mr. Imam, CC'98, is a history and international studies major at Yale College.