Can Benazir Bhutto save Pakistan's President Musharraf?

"This is all his earnings that she is enjoying," says the white-bearded man, who saved weeks worth of money from his rickshaw business to come here.

The sentiment is widespread in the crowd, and it points to the feudal nature of politics here. As the daughter of Zulfikar, Benazir has inherited the devotion that he won from many of Pakistan's poor. And as a daughter of the state of Sindh, she can expect to sweep the rural parts of the state in elections. These are the two constituencies that experts expect her to woo in the coming months.

There is a logic to the strategy of playing on her father's name and her Sindhi heritage. If she succeeds, the electoral math suggests she may be able to cobble together enough votes to be the leading partner in a coalition government – winning her the prime minister's seat.

Court weighing Bhutto's future

But uncertainties remain. First is the Supreme Court, which still must rule on whether Musharraf was a legal candidate for the presidential elections he won more than a week ago. A decision is expected soon. If he is declared invalid retroactively, Pakistan's political establishment would be thrown into chaos, and any deals Bhutto struck with Musharraf would be useless.

The Supreme Court could also have a say in this matter, too. It will look into whether the amnesty deal Bhutto made with Musharraf is illegal. If it rules against Bhutto, the decision would make her vulnerable to cases charging that she and her husband embezzled money from the government and put it in Swiss bank accounts. In one case, a Swiss judge said Thursday he had finished his investigation into the money-laundering charges and would present his findings to a prosecutor next week.

Yet even if Bhutto survives these challenges, her political maneuverings have antagonized those who created the conditions for her return: the middle class. The anti-Musharraf movement that has roiled Pakistan in recent months is largely a secular, liberal, middle-class phenomenon – a group which, in the past, often went along with Bhutto as the Western-educated, left-of-center candidate.

But it has turned against her since she began to deal with Musharraf. The president is seen by many here as a US-backed puppet, making Bhutto's arrangement with him appear to be a cynical political gambit to secure her own political future.

The middle class "felt empowered by the [anti-Musharraf] movement," says Hassan Abbas, a former member of the Bhutto and Musharraf administrations and now a political scientist at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass. "That movement could not have faced any bigger jolt than what Bhutto did" in striking a deal with Musharraf.

A working-class appeal

The middle classes were notably absent from the crowds that came to Karachi Thursday, who were overwhelmingly from the working class. Few experts expect Bhutto to attempt to reconcile with wealthier voters.

"She's not going to be bothered by them," says columnist Mr. Mahmood. "She's going to try to shore up her grass-roots base."

But he and others suggest that could be a mistake. While the middle class's electoral strength remains miniscule, it controls the news media and the IRI poll released last week suggests that media coverage of Bhutto's dealings with Musharraf have had an impact on her popularity, say some experts.

"We will only know after the election which calculus is right or wrong," says Mr. Abbas.

Page: 1 | 2