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| Published in Washington, D.C. November 15, 1988 |
Bhutto backers loud -- and menacing
By Richard S. Ehrlich
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
LAHORE, Pakistan
The ecstatic masses mob the streets, dancing in hysterical frenzy and howling with glee, "Benazir! Benazir!"
Supporters of Benazir Bhutto in tomorrow's election to choose new leaders for Pakistan dangle banners from rooftops and utility poles, wave her portrait above their heads and scream themselves hoarse in worship mixed with an angry, demanding tone that she be Pakistan's next leader -- or else.
But despite the adulation by impoverished, turbaned men, veiled women and wealthier city slickers who flock to her processions, Ms. Bhutto's campaign has run into serious problems, threatening her chances in tomorrow's election to decide who will lead the most important U.S. ally in South Asia.
In a controversial decision, the Supreme Court Saturday overturned a lower court ruling that would have allowed Pakistanis to vote without having to show government-issued identification cards.
Ms. Bhutto, 35, said the court's decision will not forestall her victory but will prevent her gaining the landslide she expected in the national assembly polls.
Some voters and officials, however, predict violence will erupt when her frustrated supporters storm polling booths but are prevented from casting their ballots amid tight security by heavily armed, steel-helmeted troops. Ms. Bhutto has called on her supporters to force their votes into the boxes but to do so without violence.
She claims the government has been grinding out thousands of ID cards for followers of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League (PML), while denying her Pakistan People's Party (PPP) supporters easy access to the documents. The government denies the charges.
Meanwhile, no one can gauge how the electorate will vote because the polls are the first in 11 years to allow political parties to contest.
In an emotional tribute, hundreds of thousands of Ms. Bhutto's loyalists poured onto the historic Grand Trunk Road Sunday to meet her caravan as it snaked toward Lahore, capital of Punjab province.
Roads were jammed as her followers turned parts of Lahore into a festival reverberating through loudspeakers as a sea of humanity rolled through the town from late afternoon until almost dawn.
No other candidate commands such spontaneous, massive outpourings of affection.
But Ms. Bhutto's image also suffers in the eyes of many voters who fear she may return Pakistan to the economic mess caused by her father, the late Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. A former prime minister and president, he was overthrown in a 1977 coup by a general, Mohammed Zia ul-Haq, who later executed him.
Gen. Zia then ruled for 11 years in a U.S.-backed military regime but was killed in August when his plane crashed after apparently being sabotaged.
"I won't vote for Benazir because her father was not a good leader," said Parvez Rashid, a car mechanic, draining the oil from a beat-up Toyota.
"I will vote for Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) instead, because it is for a strong Islam."
The Islamic Democratic Alliance (IDA), a loosely allied group of Zia admirers, Islamic fundamentalists and other right-wing parties, is Ms. Bhutto's biggest rival.
"Though the poor love her and loved her father, the big industrialists, bazaar merchants and big money were against him because he nationalized businesses, and now they don't trust her either," explained Sayed Khan, a Westernized middle class engineer who idealizes the Bhutto family.
He was standing in front of walls smeared with political graffiti showing the mostly illiterate population the ballot symbols each party is using.
Benazir's PPP is an arrow, the IDA is a bicycle, and other smaller parties have symbols including a tractor, lantern, train, book, bus and umbrella.
"Also against Benazir is Pakistan's mosque power," Mr. Khan said. The influential mosques' clergy opposes Ms. Bhutto because she wants to restore the impartiality of civilian courts, who are bound by Islamic law as a result of Zia's "Islamization" policies.
All parties, however, are claiming to support Islamization. Ms. Bhutto, sensing an explosive issue, has toned down her threats to remove all laws drawn from the Muslim holy book, the Koran.
The rural vote, however, will depend largely on the ability of powerful feudal landlords supported by Ms. Bhutto to mobilize their landless peasants while her opponents' feudal allies do the same, analysts said.
"In the countryside, in some ways, its her feudals vs. the other side's feudals," a Pakistani journalist said.