Benazir Bhutto’s defiance at the barricades has tipped Pakistan’s power struggle in her favour, analysts say.After days of relative caution, Bhutto stood behind coils of barbed wire surrounding her home on Friday and attacked Musharraf’s “dictatorship” as police prevented her from leading a protest against his imposition of emergency rule.
Analysts say her actions have helped Bhutto dispel suspicions that her previous reluctance to hold protests was because of secret talks for a western-backed power-sharing deal with President General Pervez Musharraf.
Strengthening domestic position: “She can’t lose from here,” Najam Sethi, a political analyst and editor of Pakistan’s respected Daily Times newspaper. “It certainly strengthens her (Bhutto’s) position internationally, but more importantly she is strengthening her domestic position because people are beginning to believe that the deal-making may be over.” After Musharraf declared emergency rule on November 3 she at first kept the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) off the streets, while lawyers and other opposition parties bore the burnt of baton-charges and teargas.