Bhutto's ouster latest chapter in tragic saga
By Shah Alam
ISLAMABAD (AFP): Pakistan's leading political family, with a history of triumphs and tragedies, faces one of its worst moments after Tuesday's dismissal of Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.
The sacking came as the Pakistan People's Party (PPP), founded more than 25 years ago by Bhutto's father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, stood weakened by internal family feuds and with its original populist appeal sharply down.
A family row erupted soon after the PPP won the 1993 election, when Mir Murtaza Bhutto, younger brother of Benazir Bhutto, returned home following 16 years of self-impose exile, a period he mostly spent in Syria.
Their mother, Nusrat Bhutto, nominated head of the party by husband Ali Bhutto before he was hanged in 1979, backed Murtaza's claim to be the rightful heir to the party leadership.
In 1982, when Murtaza was overseas, Nusrat Bhutto appointed Benazir Bhutto as party leader.
In a climax to their differences, Benazir Bhutto had her mother removed as co-chairman of the party in late 1994, a move which an enraged Nusrat branded illegal and unacceptable.
Gradually, the 69-year-old mother appeared to grudgingly come to terms with her daughter, while lending behind-the-scenes support to Murtaza, who remained bitterly critical of his sister until his death six weeks ago.
Murtaza, who accused Benazir Bhutto of ruining the party and leaning on its former foes, was killed in a shootout between his guards and police in southern Karachi on Sept. 20.
The killing, which is being investigated by a tribunal headed by a Supreme Court judge, accentuated the rift plaguing the family and the party.
Murtaza, elected to the Sindh provincial assembly in 1993 polls, formed a splinter group of the PPP, which observers said was hurting Bhutto in the family's Sindhi-speaking home province.
Bhutto repeatedly linked Murtaza's killing to a "conspiracy" against the family, voicing fears for her own life and the lives of husband, Asif Ali Zardari, and their three children.
A mutual dislike between Zardari and Murtaza was reportedly another factor which fueled hostility between the brother and sister.
Fiery Murtaza was opposed to the high profile his sister gave Zardari, promoting him to the cabinet as minister for investment after critics had accused him of corruption.
The architect of the family's political rise, Ali Bhutto, began to dominate Pakistan politics in 1968 after falling out with military ruler Field Marshal Ayub Khan and setting up the PPP.
As a populist leader professing a progressive Islamic socialistic program, he lead his party to a sweeping victory in 1970 elections in half of Pakistan after Ayub's downfall.
But the election heightened a divide between two wings of the country, leading to an insurgency in its eastern section, which ceded to become the independent state of Bangladesh after the 1971 Pakistan-India war.
Ali Bhutto became prime minister in then West Pakistan although his opponents accused him of complicity in the country's dismemberment.
In 1977 he was overthrown by the army and hanged two years later in a jail in nearby Rawalpindi on the orders of the then president general Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq.
Zia, during his decade-long rule until his death in a plane crash in 1988, persecuted the Bhuttos and the PPP.
Benazir Bhutto's other brother, Shahnawaz Bhutto, died in France in 1985 and was believed to have been poisoned in circumstances that have remained a mystery.
Analysts described as ominous the sweeping charges against Benazir Bhutto in Tuesday's dismissal proclamation, which held her responsible for corruption, lawlessness, nepotism and large- scale killings by security forces in Karachi and other parts of the country.
"It looks there is more serious trouble in store for her with a looming possibility that she, her husband and associates may find themselves in jail soon," one analyst said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Bhutto was first elected premier in late 1988. She was sacked by then president Ghulam Ishaq Khan in August 1990 for alleged corruption and misrule, but none of several cases brought against her were proved in special tribunals.