Benazir Bhutto returned to Karachi today, flying in from Dubai to greet large crowds of supporters.

benazir-karachi.jpg
One is often cynical about Pakistani politics, but it seems to me this is a hopeful event. A lot of things have changed since Bhutto left eight years ago, and I suspect if she ever does return to power she will do things differently than she did earlier. In the short run, of course, she will be an opposition leader, and will have to contend with both President Musharraf and a not-always-sympathetic Supreme Court.

There are, of course, people who doubt this is going anywhere. One such is Adrian Levy, who has a scathing account of the evolution of Bhutto’s power-sharing agreement at Comment is Free (at the Guardian):

The deal-making continued in earnest in early 2007, propelled by Musharraf’s weakening position. Aziz and General Kiani returned to see Bhutto again in March with a dangerous proposal. If she stayed away from Pakistan during the general election, Musharraf would “adjust the vote” to favour her party. He was offering to rig the election. Bhutto refused. Instead, she penned 36 demands, including the freeing of all political workers and a transparent election, but also indemnity from all personal criminal actions, as well as a change to the law preventing anyone from serving as prime minister for three terms.

By the end of September, with her conditions met, Bhutto was presented with Musharraf’s terms. If she won the election, she would agree to support him as a civilian president for his full five-year term and cede all responsibility for foreign affairs, internal and external security, the country’s WMD programme and its armed services to him. Given that the opaque military also fixed its budget, that left Bhutto’s prospective new government with a paltry number of low-octane domestic portfolios that revolved around the gritty municipal functions of government (including education and health). All very worthy, but not where power in Pakistan lies.

For the increasingly difficult-to-read Pakistan military, this deal, which Bhutto’s return today highlights, spells salvation, continuity and prosperity. Since Musharraf came to power in 1999, the armed services have acquired spectacular wealth, investing in everything from the asphalt people drive on, to the petrol they put in their tanks. They also control the equivalent to 12% of the total landmass of Pakistan, of which only 70,000 acres is set aside for military facilities. The other 12m acres have been turned into private farmland and individual estates for Musharraf’s key generals, making them millionaires. Musharraf, too. Although he officially lives for free in Army House, in Rawalpindi, on a salary of $1,400 a month, he has somehow acquired a real-estate portfolio worth $10m. (link)

A cynic could argue that there’s a problem if laws have to be changed in order for “democracy” to return.

A cynic could also argue that Musharraf will still pull all the important strings.

A cynic could argue that the Supreme Court should throw both Benazir Bhutto and Pervez Musharraf out of office.

A cynic could argue those things. (But I wouldn’t, not today; I’m trying to be optimistic!)

[Update: A few hours after I posted this, a massive bomb went off near Bhutto’s convoy, killing hundreds of people. Her earlier statement about not being afraid of would-be-terrorists now begins to seem in poor taste: “… Ms Bhutto said before leaving that she was undeterred [by threats of attacks]: “I do not believe that any true Muslim will make an attack on me because Islam forbids attacks on women and Muslims know that if they attack a woman they will burn in hell.”

One wishes, now, that she hadn’t made such an irresponsible statement.]