Bhutto’s Vision for Democratic Pakistan Crumbles (Update2)

Dec. 27 (Bloomberg) -- Assassinated Pakistani leader Benazir Bhutto’s vision for democracy has faded in the 12 months since her killing as the government battles rising militancy and a weakening economy.

“If only the government had followed her vision, the country would not be in such trouble,” Naheed Khan, Bhutto’s political secretary and closest aide for 25 years, said in a telephone interview from the capital, Islamabad. “It is unfortunate that in this political and security turmoil she isn’t with us.”

A year after Bhutto’s assassination in a suicide bomb and gun attack in Rawalpindi, Pakistan is facing economic and political instability and strained relations with neighboring India. The country was forced to turn to the International Monetary Fund for a $7.6 billion bailout loan to avoid defaulting on its debt.

Hundreds of Pakistanis have been killed in at least 80 terrorist incidents this year, including an attack on the Marriot Hotel in Islamabad that killed 53 people and ignited a fire that gutted the building.

The U.S. has put pressure on the Pakistan Peoples Party- led government, now headed by Bhutto’s husband, President Asif Ali Zardari, to crack down on banned groups accused by India of being involved in last month’s terrorist attacks in Mumbai.

‘Dangerous Times’

“Pakistan is going through dangerous times facing problems, but we ourselves are the cure for the problems,” Zardari said at a press conference at the family home in Naudero. “The solution to the problem of the region is politics, is dialogue and is democracy in Pakistan, because democracy is part of the cure and not part of the problem.”

American officials are also pressuring Pakistan to go after militants operating in tribal areas near the border with Afghanistan.

Pakistan has denied any link to the Mumbai militants and says it will act against any person found involved in the attack between Nov. 26 and 29 that killed 164 people.

“The world respected Ms. Bhutto and listened to her,” Khan said. “Now there is no leader in Pakistan that comes close to the stature she had.”

Anniversary Marked

Thousands of crying supporters marked the anniversary of her death in Rawalpindi, where Bhutto was killed, lighting candles and laying wreathes yesterday, the Associated Press of Pakistan said today. More than 150,000 gathered near Bhutto’s tomb in Garhi Khuda Bakhsh, the AP said. The Pakistan Peoples Party canceled a public meeting near the mausoleum due to security concerns, Geo Television Network reported today. No one has been brought to justice over Bhutto’s killing.

The PPP defeated the party loyal to former President Pervez Musharraf, a general, in national polls on Feb. 18. Bhutto returned to the country in Oct. 2007 after nine years of self- imposed exile in Dubai and London to avoid corruption cases.

All corruption charges were dropped against her and Zardari after an agreement with Musharraf, who quit in August to avoid impeachment by the PPP-led government.

The coalition government split a week after Musharraf’s resignation as the faction of the Pakistan Muslim League led by former premier Nawaz Sharif, which was the second-biggest partner, withdrew from the alliance over a dispute on the reinstatement of senior judges and the choice of a presidential candidate.

Foreign reserves of south Asia’s second-biggest economy shrank 75 percent in a year to $3.45 billion last month, while inflation reached a 30-year high, prompting the nation’s central bank to increase interest rates.

Pakistan’s economy may expand as little as 3 percent this fiscal year in response to a “tightening” of macroeconomic policies and a deceleration of growth in the nation’s trading partners, the IMF has said. That would be the slowest pace since 2000, when the economy grew 2 percent.

To contact the reporter on this story: Khaleeq Ahmed in Islamabad at paknews@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Stephen Foxwell at sfoxwell@bloomberg.net