This time they have succeeded in killing the Daughter of the East. Just two months ago, she had returned to Pakistan after eight years of forced exile. The home-coming was seen as Pakistan’s best hope for a stable and democratic future and nothing underlined that better than the unprecedented crowds that had turned up to greet her in Karachi. In that moment was both hope and despair. Within a few hours of that arrival, a bomb tore through the homecoming cavalcade. It killed over 150 people but spared Bhutto herself. This time, tragically, neither she nor indeed Pakistan was as lucky.

For Pakistan, the implications of this assassination will be felt for many years to come. The Benazir assassination is only more evidence that what Pakistan needs most of all is stability and democracy. But it also indicates how difficult it will be to achieve this. Certainly, the general election slated for January 8 has now been rendered devoid of all meaning. The democratic process, dictated by Pervez Musharraf, was a deeply flawed one; but the enthusiasm that Benazir Bhutto brought to the process had breathed new life into it. In fact, unlike the other main contender for power, Nawaz Sharif, Bhutto was of the opinion that boycotting the polls would only strengthen Musharraf’s hands. The fortitude with which she underwent the Musharraf-imposed house arrest, the courage with which she faced the obvious dangers to her life and the commitment she invested in her public campaigning, will long be remembered by her compatriots who have had few instances of public figures taking on an entrenched establishment in quite such an energetic fashion. And it was not as if she had not assessed the strength of her opponents. As she observed recently, “The extremists need a dictatorship and a dictatorship needs extremists.”

... contd.