With less than a week left before scheduled parliamentary elections, the world is watching as the Pakistani tragedy continues to play out.
The administration of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf supports postponing the vote, and the election commission seems ready to delay the vote until late next month.
After the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto on Thursday, Musharraf said the government would consult with the opposition on whether to push back elections. Opposition parties are against any delay, including Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party, which has just placed a 19-year-old -- too young to qualify for parliament -- at its helm.
The decision to postpone the vote despite the wishes of two of the three main parties comes as no surprise. Musharraf has often made promises that have not materialized. The delay has raised accusations that he is buying time for political maneuvering -- and possibly steering clear of a mass sympathy vote against his party fueled by Bhutto's killing.
But the government may have legitimate reasons for the postponement. Riots sparked by Bhutto's assassination have targeted polling stations where election materials were kept.
For Musharraf, the election date is a lose-lose situation, and he only has himself to blame. More than anything, his administration seems apt at undermining domestic and international confidence. Over the past year, Musharraf has propelled his country into a downward spiral, backing down from democratic vows while feigning to uphold them.
When the Supreme Court began to pose a risk to his rule last spring, he fired chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry. Then after Musharraf's controversial re-election in October, he declared a state of emergency just days before the Supreme Court was expected to invalidate his victory, removed the court's justices from their posts and installed loyalists.
During six weeks of what was effectively martial law -- allegedly aimed at countering terrorism -- police locked up thousands of non-violent opponents and shut down independent media. He then tweaked the Constitution to entrench his own power just one day before removing the state of emergency.
The only wise decision Musharraf made through all of this was resigning as military chief in November -- something that took him six years as president to do.
Even as militants pose an increasing threat to his country, Musharraf has proven himself more than capable of derailing social stability and democratic institutions. Since March, he has sparked repeated demonstrations and riots with his incompetence.
Around US$200 million in damage has been done to the country's railways alone since the assassination, the Cabinet says. But in the wake of last week's tragic event, Musharraf's administration again seems bent on provoking an already highly unsettled public.
Unclear details surrounding Bhutto's slaying have incensed mourners, but Musharraf's government has ruled out an independent international probe.
Reports vary as to whether Bhutto was denied government security that day. Dawn News aired still photos from footage of the killing that contradicts the official account of Bhutto's death, and other footage showed the site being scrubbed with high-pressure hoses before a forensics team could examine it. An independent investigation could help the country move forward at a time when a fragile situation leaves little room for distractions.
But it seems that anything moving the country toward stability will not be seen during the current administration. Musharraf has failed one test after another and his promises of shoring up democracy have never materialized. As the situation stands, he will not be able to win back credibility.
Could Asia be on the verge of a new wave of nuclear proliferation? A look back at the early history of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which recently celebrated its 75th anniversary, illuminates some reasons for concern in the Indo-Pacific today. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin recently described NATO as “the most powerful and successful alliance in history,” but the organization’s early years were not without challenges. At its inception, the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty marked a sea change in American strategic thinking. The United States had been intent on withdrawing from Europe in the years following
My wife and I spent the week in the interior of Taiwan where Shuyuan spent her childhood. In that town there is a street that functions as an open farmer’s market. Walk along that street, as Shuyuan did yesterday, and it is next to impossible to come home empty-handed. Some mangoes that looked vaguely like others we had seen around here ended up on our table. Shuyuan told how she had bought them from a little old farmer woman from the countryside who said the mangoes were from a very old tree she had on her property. The big surprise
The issue of China’s overcapacity has drawn greater global attention recently, with US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen urging Beijing to address its excess production in key industries during her visit to China last week. Meanwhile in Brussels, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last week said that Europe must have a tough talk with China on its perceived overcapacity and unfair trade practices. The remarks by Yellen and Von der Leyen come as China’s economy is undergoing a painful transition. Beijing is trying to steer the world’s second-largest economy out of a COVID-19 slump, the property crisis and
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) trip to China provides a pertinent reminder of why Taiwanese protested so vociferously against attempts to force through the cross-strait service trade agreement in 2014 and why, since Ma’s presidential election win in 2012, they have not voted in another Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) candidate. While the nation narrowly avoided tragedy — the treaty would have put Taiwan on the path toward the demobilization of its democracy, which Courtney Donovan Smith wrote about in the Taipei Times in “With the Sunflower movement Taiwan dodged a bullet” — Ma’s political swansong in China, which included fawning dithyrambs