And then to Karachi

Bhutto too made more clear her schedule, by announcing that she would return to Karachi on October 18. The Daily Times (September 16) tried to make sense of the geography of her homecoming: “She has chosen to land at Karachi this time for significant reasons... Out in the streets, the MQM-cadre party is almost unchallenged by any of its rivals. It must be noted, however, that when the PPP-Musharraf ‘deal’ was being negotiated, it was the PML chief minister of Sindh who condemned it. The voice of protest arose, as it were, from a Sindhi rival of the PPP, but not from the formerly anti-Sindhi MQM. In fact, out of the ruling coalition, MQM was the most positively inclined towards the ‘deal’. Bhutto is therefore testing the waters of MQM tolerance in her province where she expects to form a government in coalition with the MQM... Her decision not to come to Lahore has probably been prompted by the harsh reaction shown by the chief minister of Punjab, Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi, to the proposed ‘deal’ with President Musharraf.”

In transit

Kamran Shafi (Dawn, September 18) summarised a raging political debate, that has also found utterance on the pages of the Daily Times in recent weeks, between the “transitionists” and the “transformationists”. “The transitionists say there should be a deal between (Bhutto and Musharraf) because they are both ‘liberals’ and because getting rid of Musharraf at this fraught time would invite a hard-line general, and therefore the obscurantists, into power... They also say that a transformation from army to civil rule is not possible because of ‘structural’ problems and that the only way is through a gradual transition. Lastly, they imply that the tranformationists are anti-American and, therefore, want to get rid of Musharraf.”

... contd.