I’m hoping that Bilawal and Zulfikar Jr. will recognize that with Mumtaz and Benazir Bhutto both dead, that maybe it would be wise to settle the feud and open up the PPP to new leadership. It would reduce the payoff for assassinating either of them. This would also open it to addressing some of Pakistan’s real needs {more money for education, improved rail infrastructure, etc}. With a lot of luck, maybe even peace with India. Democracy is good, but have a developed country and a democracy is better.

What do you think of Ayesha Siddiqa’s Military Inc?

I have a blog full of random speculations about Pakistani politics at:
http://rememberjenkinsear.blogspot.com/

Ray,

To broaden the analogy, the Rockefellers have been and will remain super filthy rich. Except capitalism allows Gates, Jobs and Sergeis to continually emerge.

And, as an aside, Bush lost the popular vote in 2000.

I appreciate this blog for puttiing things in perspective.

Just to broaden the discussion outside the subcontinent.
How do you explain the 4 years of Bush Sr, 8 years of Clinton, 8 years of Bush and yet another Clinton looming large on horizon as front runner?(In highly educated, nation of 300 millions, it seems limited pool). In USA electoral politics has taken roots. I sit a phenomenon of our time , where eastablishments can only deal with trusted Brand name POLITICIANS and Legitimacy starved dictators?

But the article you link to says:

“It has been observed that most of these plunderers comprised youth between the ages of 13 to 17. These young men were apparently apolitical, but took advantage of the situation and further increased tension in the city.”

So where is the ‘orchestrated’ plot?

The looting and arson was definitely the worse I’ve seen in all my time in Karachi. But this was not really the result of some kind of plot as much of a conscious decision by the military and paramilitary forces to delay their deployment in the streets in order not to further inflame angry PPP supporters.

To the extent that modern democracies can never emerge entirely from people’s initiatives but through struggles between elites and non elites - there is no way we can avoid staying tuned into the struggles between sindhi and punjabi elites and other minor players like gujaratis and mohajirs and baluchis and so on. Right now, it appears that a lot will certainly depend on what emerges from the palace politics of the Bhutto family and this will keep resurfacing in Pakistan’s journey from time to time for at least another decade.

It strikes me that the man to watch right is not Asif Ali Zardari although he will occupy center stage. The key figure really is Mumtaz Ali Bhutto who seems to be scripting alternative scenarios around Zulfikr Ali Bhutto Jr. For him, ZAB Jr. is the true heir to Bhutto’s legacy both in terms of democratic aspirations and in terms of patrilineal continuity.

His first move was to reconnect with Ghinva Bhutto some months ago, and now immediately after Benazir’s assassination build on the fact that by custom it fell on ZAB’s shoulders to lower Benazir into the grave. He is trying to weave all the marginal actors in the family into the script he has just managed to arrange a rapprochement between Sanam and Ghinva. The idea it would seem is to build a layer of protection and mentorship around Zulfikar Ali Bhutto — with three women of the family — sanam, Ghinva and Fatima — all three of whom dislike Asif Ali Bhutto and probably somewhere see Bilawal Zardari as an interloper — auntly and sisterly affections notwithstanding.

Right now is not the time to openly challenge Asif Ali Zardari, he is more dangerous than ever, with enough control over the party mechanisms. The trick is to keep the place warm — gain access to power centers in the party without threatening Asif Ali Zardari such that when the time is ripe Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Jr. can step in to do the right thing.

But what will all this mean to democratic aspirations of ordinary people ? How should democratic movements relate to these palace intrigues ? Mumtaz Bhutto is at the end of the day a sardar. His instincts powerful as they are and sensible as they may be will always be for the internal wrangles of clan politics. Under his tutelage, and through him, both Fatima and zAB Jr. will gain access to power but precisely because it is through him that they will find themselves trapped into power dynamics very similar to those in which Benazir Bhutto found herself when she first became prime minister. I hope, I mean really hope that Fatima Ali Bhutto does not get entangled in these politics and remains a journalist for another decade. That is the only way someone from a family like that can lose their sense of personal entitlements and begin to understand the entitlements of ordinary people.