Pakistan ponders meaning of democracy

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By Lyse Doucet BBC News, Pakistan From where I stood outside the parliament, I could see the scrum bristling with microphones and the impressive alphabet of Pakistani private TV channels - Geo, AAJ, ARY, Dawn, to name just a few.

Former PM Benazir Bhutto casts a long shadow over the election

Then one journalist seized the moment and thrust his microphone ahead of the rest.

"What's your definition of democracy?" he shouted.

Pakistan's information minister, finely suited and finely spoken, responded in impeccable English.

Then the same journalist came back at him, rising a bit more on his toes, in this little dance between Pakistani journalists and officialdom.

"Does it include the manipulation of democracy?" he demanded.

That is the question in Pakistan today: what does democracy mean?

Ballot-box victory

What does it mean in a country that has had both extraordinary successes and spectacular failures in the politics of the people?

Since the shocking assassination of Benazir Bhutto, archive footage of a 36-year-old woman smiling in her shimmering emerald green tunic and trademark white scarf taking the oath of office as prime minister in 1988, has been played again and again.

It represented a resounding victory won through the ballot box after years of repressive martial law.

The battle for democracy in Pakistan has lasted decades

"She looks so young," I remarked to a fellow journalist who, like me, was in Pakistan to report on Benazir Bhutto's rise to power as the first female prime minister in the Islamic world.

I suppose we were all younger as we witnessed this history, so perhaps her youth did not seem so impressive at the time.

I watched the images again this week and one caught my eye: the young Benazir signs a gold embossed book and, as she does so, steals a shy look past the edge of her head scarf at the establishment figure of the elderly president, Ghulam Ishaq Khan.

Less than two years later he sacked her for alleged incompetence and corruption.

Fateful rally

In 1988 the mood in Pakistan had been of heady excitement but also deep uncertainty.

The rule of the people seemed to have returned but how would it sit with a powerful army grown accustomed to being completely in charge?

Twenty years on Pakistanis are going to the ballot box again.

Once again it is meant to move this country from military to civilian rule and, once again, Benazir Bhutto is the most recognised face.

The president promises free, fair, transparent and peaceful elections

But this time she is just an image from archive footage on huge, brightly painted campaign billboards.

And she is a voice, a ghost that hangs over this process.

Her last rousing speech at that fateful rally in Rawalpindi, where she was murdered, plays again and again through crackly loudspeakers in village gatherings and city meetings, as candidates campaign in her name.

She is still the biggest vote gainer, even among people who remember her two terms as prime minister as a betrayal.

The promise of her Pakistan People's Party (PPP) - Roti, Kupra, aur Makkan (Bread, Clothing and Shelter) - was never realised.

But now she is a political martyr.

Democracy as revenge

Many in her family and her party still blame shadowy elements in the political and military establishment for her death even though the UK's Scotland Yard, the CIA and the Pakistan government point an accusing finger at pro-Taleban militants.

"Democracy is the best revenge," is what she is said to have told her son, 19-year-old Bilawal, now studying at Oxford University until he is old enough to assume his mother's mantle.

He spoke the phrase at his first press conference in London last month.

It is being repeated again and again in this election campaign.

The election is meant to shift power from military to civilian rule

But it still begs the question, what does democracy mean in real terms in Pakistan today?

For the Pakistan People's Party, it means a return to power.

For journalists who have been bravely and bluntly putting their questions to the politicians, it is an end to the censorship that still restricts their work.

For lawyers who have been taking to the streets for months, calling on President Pervez Musharraf to go, it is the reinstatement of the chief justices he sacked last year, ostensibly to save Pakistan.

Obsession

The president has pledged to give Pakistan what he has called "the mother of all elections": free, fair, transparent and peaceful.

But a lot of Pakistanis, and all the election observer missions, do not believe him.

The president was right, politics is still feudal, some of its practitioners corrupt and inept but back home in Pakistan leading newspapers accused Mr Musharraf of belittling democracy On his recent tour across Europe, to convince the world he was still their best bet, the president chided the West for its obsession with democracy.

Pakistan, he said, would achieve it in its own time.

That won him a nod from US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

As she put it, democracy "doesn't happen in a minute".

But the battle for democracy in Pakistan has been waged for decades.

Yes, the president was right, politics is still feudal and some of its practitioners corrupt and inept, but back home in Pakistan leading newspapers accused Mr Musharraf of belittling the process.

"No, not an obsession!" declared one headline.

On Monday, despite fears of suicide bombings and electoral rigging, millions of Pakistanis will show what they really think of their democracy.

From Our Own Correspondent was broadcast on Saturday 16 February, 2008 at 1130 GMT on BBC Radio 4. Please check the <a class="inlineText" href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/3187926.stm">programme schedules </a> for World Service transmission times.