The assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto has
thrown Pakistan into one of the worst crises in its 60-year
history, raising the spectre of widespread civil unrest and the
cancellation of elections. Analysts say President Pervez
Musharraf, who stepped down as army chief of the country two
weeks ago under intense international pressure, is likely to
seize the moment to reimpose emergency rule and cancel, or at
least postpone, elections scheduled for January 8.
“It is fair to assume now that elections cannot go ahead,” said
Farzana Shaikh, an expert on Pakistan and an associate fellow
at the Chatham House analysis group in London. “The electoral
process has been stopped dead in its tracks. I think there is a
very real possibility that Musharraf will decide that the
situation has got out of control and that he needs to impose
emergency rule again. She said Pakistan, a key US ally in the
battle against al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan, was
entering “uncharted waters”, which could lead to instability in
a region that has seen three wars fought between Pakistan and
India. “This is not the first crisis Pakistan has faced since
its inception in 1947, but I would be inclined to say that it
is the worst convergence of crises we have seen,” Shaikh said.
