Pakistan Views

Shares in Karachi stock market rallied on Thursday as the country’s political crisis appeared to stabilise.

The Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE) benchmark 100-share index jumped 3.7 percent in morning trade after electoral authorities declared a six-week delay to general elections and the president said Britain would help with investigations into last week’s martyrdom of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto.

At 0530 GMT, the index was up 502.22 points at 13,855.60 on turnover of 51 million shares.

“Apart from the market bouncing back after an almost 10 percent fall, investors have become optimistic as President Musharraf has given a clear-cut time frame for elections and met most of the demands of the opposition parties,” said Sajid Bhanji a dealer at brokers Arif Habib Ltd.

A delay to elections, originally scheduled for Jan. 8, was widely expected but investors had feared that a lengthy or indefinite postponement could have led to new political unrest and a possible return to street violence.

The commission declared a new date of Feb. 18.

Opposition leader Benazir’s martyred, in a gun-and-bomb attack at a campaign rally on Dec. 27, unleashed a wave of violence on the streets and selling in the market. At Wednesday’s close, the KSE index had shed 9.6 percent since her martyred.

Authorities blamed al Qaeda for her murder, but controversy over their official version of events led to demands from Benazir’s party for an international inquiry.

Dealers said crude oil leaping to a lifetime high of $100 a barrel on Wednesday provided further support to Pakistani energy stocks, the heaviest-weighted sector in the KSE.

“I think if foreign investors look for the long term, there is value,” said Tariq Choudhry, head of sales at Invisor Securities.

Among the most active shares, Oil and Gas Development Co Ltd rose 4.60 rupees to 118, outsourcing firm TRG Pakistan 0.95 rupees to 14.35 and Bank of Punjab 2.90 rupees to 97

Assassinated opposition leader Benazir is to be posthumously awarded Ireland’s 2007 Tipperary Peace Prize, the organisers said on Tuesday. Benazir was recognised for her “courageous” work for democracy and reconciliation, said the Tipperary Peace Convention, which has in the past honoured South Africa’s Nelson Mandela and Live Aid organiser Bob Geldof.

“Ms Benazir fought all her battles through dialogue and political debate and was an example to all those who do not use or surrender to terrorism,” it said in a statement. “Her selection as Peace Prize recipient should act as an inspiration to those in Pakistan who seek to secure democracy and reconciliation for their country,” it added.

The Convention said the accolade was to “recognise the very difficult path towards peace and democracy in Pakistan and the ultimate sacrifice made by Ms Bhutto in her campaign to put her country back on the road to democracy”.

“Ms Benazir, a former two-time Prime Minister, was an incredibly brave and courageous woman who had returned from exile to her homeland to lead her party in the forthcoming elections. “She knew the risks involved in her return but she did so because she felt that her country and the Pakistani people needed her.”

Twelve important members of the US Congress have warned that if the White House does not stand for getting the investigation from the United Nations into the assassination of Benazir Bhutto and holding the elections on the scheduled date of January 8 then the restrictions imposed on the US aid for Pakistan may be increased.

According to senior journalist Shaheen Sehbai, the new year vacations are going on in the American Congress but despite this, the twelve important members of the majority Democratic Party have written a letter to US foreign minister Condoleezza Rice.

Grave concern was expressed on the Bush administration policy regarding the assassination of Benazir Bhutto and the expected delay in holding the elections and this was condemned in the letter.

This has been said in the letter that they were concerned over the White House statement that the assassination of Benazir Bhutto was Pakistan’s internal matter. However, the US has always supported the international demands for investigating such events of independent countries on world level and the example of the probe into the murder of former president of Lebanon Rafiq Hariri is before in this connection.

This has also been said in the letter that the conflicting reports are coming regarding the assassination of Benazir Bhutto and a few serious questions are arising such as conflicting statement of doctor and issue of video tape.

This situation demands for a world level probe into the murder of Benazir Bhutto.

Besides, it was said by the White House that if the elections are postponed then the new date should be declared and this statement is not right as it is practically an open invitation for delaying the polls.

This was said in the letter that the US has already stopped $50 million from this year’s US aid to Pakistan and if, in this situation, fair and independent investigations in the murder of Benazir are not held and the elections are delayed then an eye would be kept on the US funds already stopped for Pakistan and attention would be given towards imposing additional sanctions in future.

The letter has asked the White House and the Bush administration to stress on holding the elections in Pakistan.

Despite mounting disbelief, government stuck to its position on Tuesday that Benazir Bhutto was killed when she cracked her skull on the lever on a sunroof of her car during a gun and bomb attack.

The opposition leader’s Pakistans Peoples Party says she was shot, and most Pakistanis agree.

Video footage surfaced on Monday showing a clean-cut young man firing a pistol at Bhutto from a distance of about 10 feet (3 metres), her white shawl appearing to move, perhaps as a bullet struck, and her dropping back into the armoured vehicle.

The raging controversy about exactly how she was killed as she left an election rally in Rawalpindi last Thursday has virtually eclipsed the question of who was behind the attack.

Just over 24 hours after Bhutto’s death the Interior Ministry said three shots had been fired moments before a suicide bomber struck but neither bullets nor blast fragments had killed her.

The ministry’s spokesman said that Bhutto had been killed when she ducked, the explosion forced her head against a lever jutting from the sunroof, and the blow fractured her skull.

Ministers of the caretaker government met senior editors on Monday and apologised for the “crude” way the Interior Ministry spokesman had announced the government conclusion.

But caretaker Interior Minister Hamid Nawaz said the government was not changing its stance.

“His remarks were a little crude (but) there is no change in the factual position,” that Bhutto’s head struck the lever, Nawaz told Reuters.

“That is what the present facts are indicating but maybe tomorrow something new will come up once the investigation people get additional facts,” he said.

Asked about the video footage showing the man shooting at Bhutto, he said: “The investigation would consider this also.”

NO AUTOPSY

While the bomb blast moments later killed more than 20 people, none of Bhutto’s companions inside her vehicle was hurt.

The controversy about how she actually died has only fuelled conspiracy theories in a country where many people see the hand of feared security agencies or powerful foreign countries behind virtually every political crisis.

The government has blamed an al Qaeda-linked militant based on the Afghan border, Baitullah Mehsud, for the attack but many Pakistanis believe Bhutto’s old enemies, perhaps from within the powerful security agencies, were involved.

Former intelligence chief Asad Durrani said the government’s rush to explain Bhutto’s death was “completely unnecessary” and would not end accusations of a security failure.

“In their eagerness to find something to justify themselves they sometimes concoct things that come back to haunt them.”

Doctors who examined Bhutto said no bullet or shrapnel showed up on an X-ray. The single wound on her head did not look like a bullet wound but appeared to indicate a forceful blow by some heavy object, one said.

Doctors released an inconclusive report saying the cause of death was “an open head injury with depressed skull fracture, leading to cardiopulmonary arrest”.

A senior hospital source said the doctors had been under intense pressure from all sides over the cause of death.

No autopsy had been performed, at the request of her family, the government said.

Bhutto’s husband, Asif Ali Zardari, confirmed that, saying an autopsy had not been necessary when the cause of death was so obviously a bullet. He also expressed scepticism about how an autopsy would have been done.

“I have lived here long enough to know how and where an autopsy would have been conducted,” he told reporters.

PPP has called for a UN investigation into her assassination but the government has said Pakistani investigators were capable of conducting the inquiry. A four-member Pakistani police team and a separate judicial team are investigating.

Martyred Benazir Bhutto’s party appointed her son Bilawal and her husband Asif Ali Zardari to succeed the slain PPP leader on Sunday and the party said it would take part in a Jan 8 election as Martyred Benazir would have wanted.

But a senior official of the former ruling party said the election was likely to be delayed for up to eight weeks.

Benazir martyrdom in a suicide attack on Thursday has stoked violence and thrown into doubt the election, deepening a crisis in the important US ally against terrorism as it struggles to emerge from military rule.

Bilawal, an Oxford law student, is Bhutto’s 19-year-old son. He will lead the party as chairman with his father, Asif Ali Zardari, who is to be co-chairman.

Zardari said the party would take part in the election as his martyred Benazir would have wanted.

“Despite this dangerous situation, we will go for January 8 elections, according to her will and thinking,” Zardari told a news conference at the martyred Benazir family home in Naudero, after a party meeting.

Bilawal, introduced at the news conference as Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, said the party’s long struggle for democracy would continue with new vigour. “My mother always said, democracy is the best revenge,” he said.

Earlier, a senior official of the party that backs President Pervez Musharraf and ruled until a caretaker government was set up last month, said a postponement of the election was increasingly likely because of the turmoil that erupted after Benazir martyrdom.

“It seems more than likely that elections will be delayed,” the official, Tariq Azim Khan, told Reuters. He said he expected a six to eight week postponement.

Martyred Benazir had hoped to win power for a third time in the vote though analysts expected a three-way split between her, PML-N and PML-Q.

The party can expect to pick up a sympathy vote after Benazir’s martyrdom and its core support would remain for now, even though Bilawal would return to university

“It will retain support in the short term but obviously, in the long term they’ll have to earn their spurs and demonstrate leadership,” said former minister and analyst Shafqat Mahmood.

But the choice of the Bilawal and Zardari to lead the party raised eyebrows among some people.

“I don’t think Zardari is capable enough of handling the party himself. Bilawal is too young, the father is not capable. Someone else should be appointed,” said Ferooz Menon, 37, who has an electronics business in the eastern city of Lahore.

Anger against Musharraf burns strongly among martyred Benazir Bhutto supporters and since her death sporadic violence has erupted, boosting fears about country stability.

The death toll from the violence has reached 47.

Streets in Karachi were generally quiet and deserted on Sunday though a disabled man was burned to death when a petrol station was set on fire.

Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party has dismissed a government statement that al Qaeda killed her, saying Musharraf’s embattled administration was trying to cover up its failure to protect her.

India has ended its high alert for forces along the Pakistan border and restored some transport links, officials said on Monday, following disruption in the wake of Benazir Bhutto’s assassination.

The killing of the Pakistani opposition leader in a suicide attack on Thursday unleashed a wave of violence in Pakistan. India had feared chaos could spill across the border and ordered a “high state of vigil” on Friday.

But with cities in Pakistan beginning to emerge from several days of unrest, India’s border is no longer on “red alert”, a home ministry official said.

The bi-weekly Delhi-Lahore Samjhauta Express train resumed services on Sunday, the railway ministry said. The Thar Express, a weekly service between India’s Rajasthan state and Pakistan’s Sindh province, will run again on Saturday “if the situation improves”, a ministry official said.

Relations between the neighbours, which have been to war three times and nearly fought another conflict in 2002, are always fraught despite a fragile peace process in the past few years.

Pakistan’s political leaders must strive for democracy, which would stand as a lasting memorial to assassinated opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Monday.

In an article for daily Urdu newspaper, Brown said it was important Bhutto’s killing did not deflect the country’s political leaders from the pursuit of democracy and that scheduled elections could be free, fair and secure.

“A strong representative democracy in Pakistan will defeat terrorism and extremism, show the path to a more stable, prosperous future, and stand as a lasting memorial to the life’s work of Benazir Bhutto,” Brown wrote.

“We owe it to her memory to strive together to achieve that goal,” he said.

Bhutto’s killing in a suicide attack on Thursday stoked bloodshed across the country, casting doubt on nuclear-armed Pakistan’s stability and its transition to civilian rule.

Electoral officials are due to hold an emergency meeting on Monday to decide whether to go ahead with a planned Jan. 8 election. Bhutto’s party, which chose her son and husband on Sunday to succeed her, has said it will take part in the election.