Six hours before she was executed, Mary, Queen of
Scots wrote to her brother-in-law, Henry III of
France: "...As for my son, I commend him to you
in so far as he deserves, for I cannot answer for
him." The year was 1587.

On 30 December 2007, a conclave of feudal
potentates gathered in the home of the slain
Benazir Bhutto to hear her last will and
testament being read out and its contents
subsequently announced to the world media. Where
Mary was tentative, her modern-day equivalent
left no room for doubt. She could certainly
answer for her son.

A triumvirate consisting of her husband, Asif
Zardari (one of the most venal and discredited
politicians in the country and still facing
corruption charges in three European courts) and
two ciphers will run the party till Benazir’s
19-year-old son, Bilawal, comes of age. He will
then become chairperson-for-life and, no doubt,
pass it on to his children. The fact that this is
now official does not make it any less grotesque.
The Pakistan People’s Party is being treated as a
family heirloom, a property to be disposed of at
the will of its leader.

Nothing more, nothing less. Poor Pakistan. Poor
People’s Party supporters. Both deserve better
than this disgusting, medieval charade.

Benazir’s last decision was in the same
autocratic mode as its predecessors, an approach
that would cost her - tragically - her own life.
Had she heeded the advice of some party leaders
and not agreed to the Washington-brokered deal
with Pervez Musharraf or, even later, decided to
boycott his parliamentary election she might
still have been alive. Her last gift to the
country does not augur well for its future.

How can Western-backed politicians be taken
seriously if they treat their party as a fiefdom
and their supporters as serfs, while their
courtiers abroad mouth sycophantic niceties
concerning the young prince and his future.

That most of the PPP inner circle consists of
spineless timeservers leading frustrated and
melancholy lives is no excuse. All this could be
transformed if inner-party democracy was
implemented. There is a tiny layer of
incorruptible and principled politicians inside
the party, but they have been sidelined. Dynastic
politics is a sign of weakness, not strength.
Benazir was fond of comparing her family to the
Kennedys, but chose to ignore that the Democratic
Party, despite an addiction to big money, was not
the instrument of any one family.

The issue of democracy is enormously important in
a country that has been governed by the military
for over half of its life. Pakistan is not a
“failed state” in the sense of the Congo or
Rwanda. It is a dysfunctional state and has been
in this situation for almost four decades.

At the heart of this dysfunctionality is the
domination by the army and each period of
military rule has made things worse. It is this
that has prevented political stability and the
emergence of stable institutions. Here the US
bears direct responsibility, since it has always
regarded the military as the only institution it
can do business with and, unfortunately, still
does so. This is the rock that has focused choppy
waters into a headlong torrent.

The military’s weaknesses are well known and have
been amply documented. But the politicians are
not in a position to cast stones. After all, Mr 
Musharraf did not pioneer the assault on the
judiciary so conveniently overlooked by the US
Deputy Secretary of State, John Negroponte, and
the Foreign Secretary, David Miliband. The first
attack on the Supreme Court was mounted by Nawaz
Sharif’s goons who physically assaulted judges
because they were angered by a decision that ran
counter to their master’s interests when he was
prime minister.

Some of us had hoped that, with her death, the
People’s Party might start a new chapter. After
all, one of its main leaders, Aitzaz Ahsan,
president of the Bar Association, played a heroic
role in the popular movement against the
dismissal of the chief justice. Mr Ahsan was
arrested during the emergency and kept in
solitary confinement. He is still under house
arrest in Lahore. Had Benazir been capable of
thinking beyond family and faction she should
have appointed him chairperson pending elections
within the party. No such luck.

The result almost certainly will be a split in
the party sooner rather than later. Mr Zardari
was loathed by many activists and held
responsible for his wife’s downfall. Once
emotions have subsided, the horror of the
succession will hit the many traditional PPP
followers except for its most reactionary
segment: bandwagon careerists desperate to make a
fortune.

All this could have been avoided, but the deadly
angel who guided her when she was alive was,
alas, not too concerned with democracy. And now
he is in effect leader of the party.

Meanwhile there is a country in crisis. Having
succeeded in saving his own political skin by
imposing a state of emergency, Mr Musharraf still
lacks legitimacy. Even a rigged election is no
longer possible on 8 January despite the stern
admonitions of President George Bush and his
unconvincing Downing Street adjutant. What is
clear is that the official consensus on who
killed Benazir is breaking down, except on BBC
television. It has now been made public that,
when Benazir asked the US for a Karzai-style
phalanx of privately contracted former US Marine
bodyguards, the suggestion was contemptuously
rejected by the Pakistan government, which saw it
as a breach of sovereignty.

Now both Hillary Clinton and Senator Joseph
Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee, are pinning the convict’s badge on Mr 
Musharraf and not al-Qa’ida for the murder, a
sure sign that sections of the US establishment
are thinking of dumping the President.

Their problem is that, with Benazir dead, the
only other alternative for them is General Ashraf
Kiyani, head of the army. Nawaz Sharif is seen as
a Saudi poodle and hence unreliable, though,
given the US-Saudi alliance, poor Mr Sharif is
puzzled as to why this should be the case. For
his part, he is ready to do Washiongton’s bidding
but would prefer the Saudi King rather than Mr 
Musharraf to be the imperial message-boy.

A solution to the crisis is available. This would
require Mr Musharraf’s replacement by a less
contentious figure, an all-party government of
unity to prepare the basis for genuine elections
within six months, and the reinstatement of the
sacked Supreme Court judges to investigate
Benazir’s murder without fear or favour. It would
be a start.