Bhutto widower Zardari elected Pakistan's new president

From CNN.com

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) -- The widower of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has won the election to be the country's next president, Pakistani media reported Saturday.


Supporters of Asif Ali Zardari celebrate his presidential election success in Karachi Saturday.

Asif Ali Zardari, 53, had been the front-runner in the race to replace former President Pervez Musharraf, who was forced to resign last month.

The election was not by public vote, but rather by lawmakers in the two houses of the National Assembly and in the four provincial assemblies around the country. Under Pakistan's constitution, the president is elected by a majority vote.

Pakistan's PTV reported that in parliament, Zardari received 281 votes. Retired Chief Justice Saeed-uz-Zaman Siddiqui received 111 votes and Senator Mushahid Hussein received 34, PTV reported.

The pro-American Zardari will rule a nuclear power threatened by Islamic militancy and economic turmoil. The Taliban are resurgent in Pakistan and the country's economy is tanking.

Zardari took over Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party (PPP) after her death late last year. His party had been confident of a win, saying Zardari had the support of three of the four provincial assemblies -- which would be crucial in helping Zardari forge the alliances he needs to tackle the country's main problems.

Hussain, who was a close aide to the ex-president, was representing Musharraf's Pakistan Muslim League-Q. The party had painted him as a candidate who represented the middle class and has a clean track record -- in contrast to Zardari, who spent 11 and a half years in jail on corruption charges that he refutes.

Siddiqui was nominated by the Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N), led by former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

Musharraf resigned under intense political pressure last month as the ruling coalition began taking steps to impeach him. He had swept to power in 1999 in a bloodless coup.

The chairman of the upper house of the assembly, Mohammedmian Soomro, has been acting president in the meantime.

Saturday's election came one day after Pakistan's Supreme Court reinstated three of its judges who Musharraf ousted in November, following his imposition of emergency rule.

The PPP had formed a coalition with Sharif's party, the PML-N, but the coalition split apart August 25. The PML-N had set that date as a deadline for the government to honor its promise to reinstate the judges who were fired.

The PPP, which led the coalition, said it believed the coalition should focus on picking a successor for Musharraf before it decided on reinstating the judges.

At least 60 judges were arrested after Musharraf issued his order. Some were jailed, others placed under house arrest.

Security around the National Assembly building in Islamabad was tight, with police on the roof and at the gates and riot police on site.


As the voting took place, a suicide car bomb exploded in northwestern Pakistan, killing 16 people, including 10 police officers, a local police spokesman said. Fifty others, mostly civilians, were wounded.

The explosion happened at a checkpoint on the outskirts of Peshawar, the capital of Pakistan's North West Frontier Province. The province is near Pakistan's border with Afghanistan and is rife with Islamic extremists.

I don't know how this is going to work out. For my money, Pakistan is stil the most dangerous country on Earth. We must see how this goes, but I'm not optimistic.

Pakistan Votes In Parliamentary Elections

Bhutto's PPP (Pakistan People's Party) Headed Towards Big Victory

Can Musharraf survive? The PPP vows to remove him.

By Zeeshan Haider

ISLAMABAD, Feb 19 (Reuters)- Early Pakistani election results show supporters of President Pervez Musharraf struggling, television stations reported on Tuesday.
Monday's election was relatively peaceful after a bloody campaign that will be remembered for the assassination of former prime minister and opposition leader Benazir Bhutto in a suicide attack on Dec. 27.

Overall trends were unlikely to become clear until later on Tuesday but small groups of opposition supporters celebrated in the streets of Lahore and Rawalpindi.
In a major blow for the Pakistan Muslim League (PML) which backs Musharraf, its president, Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, a former prime minister, was defeated in his Punjab province constituency by a rival from Bhutto's party, television networks said, citing unofficial Election Commission tallies.
Several other senior PML members appeared to be losing their seats, television stations reported.

Musharraf said on Monday he would work with whoever won to build democracy in a country that has alternated between civilian and army rule throughout its 60-year history.

"This is the voice of the nation," Musharraf said on state-run Pakistan Television lat on Monday. "Everyone should accept the results, that includes myself."
A hostile parliament could try to remove Musharraf, who came to power as a general in a 1999 coup and emerged as a crucial Muslim ally of the United States in a "war on terror" that most Pakistanis think is Washington's, not theirs.
The death of Bhutto, the most progressive, Western-friendly politician in a Muslim nation rife with anti-American sentiment, raised concern about the stability of the nuclear-armed country.

Musharraf's popularity has plunged over the past year because of measures including his purge of the judiciary and the imposition of six weeks of emergency rule.
Many Pakistanis also blame him and his PML-led government for rising prices, food shortages and power cuts.

"If they lose, then I feel I'm winning," said Imtiaz Ali, a lawyer in the northwestern city of Peshawar, as he watched early results on television.
"I'm optimistic because the way people have voted shows that they want democracy, not dictatorship."

FEAR AND SYMPATHY
Fear kept many Pakistanis away from the polls, despite 80,000 troops backing up police.

A suicide bomb campaign waged by al Qaeda-inspired militants has added to a mounting sense of insecurity. More than 450 people have been killed in militant-related violence this year.
Election violence on Monday, though bad in places, was not as severe as many had feared.

At least 20 people were killed in poll-related violence, including 15 activists from Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party (PPP), her widower Asif Ali Zardari said.
A Pakistani poll watchdog group said there had been a few incidents of polling irregularities. Main opposition parties which had earlier warned of rigging by Musharraf's allies had no immediate comment on the fairness of the vote.
Sarwar Bari of the Free and Fair Election Network, an umbrella organisation of 40 non-governmental organisations, said initial estimates suggested a turnout of nearly 42 percent, almost matching that of the 2002 election.

A sympathy vote is expected to help Bhutto's PPP become the largest party in the 342-seat National Assembly, but most analysts doubt it can win a majority.
Analysts say Musharraf wants a coalition between the PPP and the PML.

An alliance between the PPP and the other main opposition party, led by former prime minister Nawaz Sharif who Musharraf ousted in 1999, is what Musharraf dreads, as together they could force him out through impeachment or other ways.
By quitting as army chief in November to extend his presidency until 2012, Musharraf weakened ties with his greatest source of support.
Western allies hope for a stable Pakistan focused on fighting militancy, as do investors in a stock market that rose 40 percent last year but has shed about 3 percent since Bhutto's death.

Source- The Guardian

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In a related development... a top Pakistani official was overheard saying that the vote would be rigged.
I think Musharraf will have a hard time getting away with stealing this election. Polls have showed Bhutto's Party way ahead. Followed by Nawaz Sharif's supporters... with Musharraf backers coming in at a distant third place.

Benazir Bhutto Assassinated

I'm watching this on CNN right now. Benazir Bhutto was assassinated today at a rally in Pakistan. There was a suicide bomber at the rally. Ms. Bhutto was shot in the neck AFTER the bomb. Fifteen others were killed at the rally.

I'll update later.

Ms. Bhutto leaves behind a husband and three children.

__________________________

The Angry Independent

Benazir Bhutto killed in Suicide Attack

Pakistan in Chaos

UN Security Council To Go Into Emergency Session.

One of the most powerful leaders in Pakistan and in the Muslim world, Bhutto was the first female Prime Minister of the Country and one of the first female leaders of a major Muslim Country. She was also leader of the Pakistan Peoples Party, one of the largest Parties in Pakistan. She was the daughter of former Pakistani President & Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.

Pervez Musharraf will have his hands full trying to keep a lid on this situation. Many will wonder if he was involved.

___________________________

The Angry Independent

Nawaz Sharif also under attack. Could this assasination have been part of a larger coordinated plot?

Meanwhile, unrest is spreading in Pakistan with riots reported across the country. Civil conflict is now a possibility.




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From CNN.com

RAWALPINDI, Pakistan (CNN) -- Pakistan's former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated Thursday after addressing a large gathering of her supporters.

Bhutto died of a gunshot wound to the neck, the Pakistani Interior Ministry said. The attacker then blew himself up. The bomb attack killed at least 22 others, doctors said.

Video of the scene just moments before the explosion showed Bhutto stepping into a heavily guarded vehicle to leave the rally.

John Moore, a photographer for Getty Images, said Bhutto was standing through the sunroof of her vehicle, waving to supporters, when two shots rang out.

Bhutto fell back into the vehicle, and almost immediately a bomb blast rocked the scene, sending twisting metal and shrapnel into the crowd, he added.

Police sources told CNN the bomber, who was riding a motorcycle, blew himself up near Bhutto's vehicle.

Bhutto was rushed to Rawalpindi General Hospital -- less than two miles from the bombing scene -- where doctors pronounced her dead.

Her body was removed from the hospital -- carried above a crowd of supporters -- late Thursday night, about six hours after the assassination.

Chaos erupted at the hospital when former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif arrived to pay his respects to Bhutto less than three hours after her death.

Hundreds of Bhutto supporters crammed into the entrance shouted and cried, some clutching their heads in pain and shock. Sharif called it "the saddest day" in Pakistan's history. "Something unthinkable has happened," he said

Sharif said his party will boycott Pakistan's January 8 parliamentary elections in the wake of the assassination.

President Pervez Musharraf said the killers were the same extremists that Pakistan is fighting a war against, and announced three days of national mourning.

Police warned citizens to stay home as they expected rioting to break out in city streets in reaction to the death.

Rioters burned tires and blocked roads in Karachi and other cities, police sources said. Police fired on an angry mob, killing two people, in the city of Khairpur in the Sindh province, Geo TV reported.

Bhutto's husband issued a statement from his home in Dubai saying, "All I can say is we're devastated, it's a total shock." He arrived in Pakistan late Thursday.

President Bush said those responsible "must be brought to justice" and praised Bhutto as a woman who had "fought the forces of terror." He said: "She refused to allow assassins to dictate the course of her country."

The number of wounded was not immediately known. However, video of the scene showed ambulances lined up to take many to hospitals.

The assassination happened in Rawalpindi's Liaquat Bagh Park, named for Pakistan's first prime minister -- Liaquat Ali Khan -- who was assassinated in the same location in 1951.

The attack came just hours after four supporters of former Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif died when members of another political party opened fire on them at a rally near the Islamabad airport Thursday, Pakistan police said.

Several other members of Sharif's party were wounded, police said.

Bhutto, who led Pakistan from 1988 to 1990 and was the first female prime minister of any Islamic nation, was participating in the parliamentary election set for January 8, hoping for a third term.

A terror attack targeting her motorcade in Karachi killed 136 people on the day she returned to Pakistan after eight years of self-imposed exile. View timeline. »

CNN's Mohsin Naqvi, who was at the scene of both bombings, said Thursday's blast was not as powerful as that October attack.

Thursday's attacks come less than two weeks after Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf lifted an emergency declaration he said was necessary to secure his country from terrorists.

Bhutto had been critical of what she believed was a lack of effort by Musharraf's government to protect her.

Two weeks after the October assassination attempt, she wrote a commentary for CNN.com in which she questioned why Pakistan investigators refused international offers of help in finding the attackers.

"The sham investigation of the October 19 massacre and the attempt by the ruling party to politically capitalize on this catastrophe are discomforting, but do not suggest any direct involvement by General Pervez Musharraf," Bhutto wrote.

I think of her 3 children; only one is ' of age.' How they were worried for her. I read about her; how she had her frivolous years at Harvard and Oxford. But, somewhere along the line, frivolity went away, and she grew up. She took the mantle from her father and brother and stepped up to the plate. Not liking what she saw, she came back to Pakistan, because of that pull of duty to her people. Was she perfect? Of course not. But, she believed in 'The Pakistani People' and wanted to help fight for her country against those that would clap down on her as a woman and strip her of any and all freedoms. She WAS a ' Moderate Muslim', and sadly, I believe she was killed because of it.

I have been writing about Pakistan for a few months. Pointing out that it really is the most dangerous place on Earth right now. As usual, the U.S. backed the wrong guy, Musharraf, for too long. By propping him up as long as we have, we have been eroding the middle ground of Pakistan. The longer we continue to prop him up, the LESS LIKELY it will be that the person who replaces him will be as friendly to the United States. Make no mistake; there are a lot of shady characters in the world - we deal with a lot of them. But, better a shady character that we can work with, rather than the militant Islamists who wouldn't hesitate to give their fellow Militant Islamists one of the nukes that Pakistan controls.