US Presidential Election & Benazir Bhutto’s Death
Will Benazir Bhutto’s murder impact US presidential election? If President Pervez Musharraf had nurtured any illusions that with the removal of his arch rival Benazir Bhutto he would live/rule happily ever after, the Pakistani dictator better get prepared for a gathering storm ahead. The recent assassination is likely to become a major issue in the US presidential election campaign with Hillary Clinton on Friday calling for an independent, international probe into Benazir Bhutto’s murder.
“The assassination of the former Pakistani premier was the kind of sudden, outside event with the potential to quickly roil presidential campaign plans, and revived the issues of national security and experience in the 2008 race,” reports AFP. “An unanswered question was how the shockwaves would play out in the minds of voters in Iowa, which kicks off the party nominating season with caucuses next Thursday, and New Hampshire, which has primary elections on January 8.
” ‘It is also clear the Bush policy of giving Musharraf a blank check has failed,’ Clinton said, adding a Bhutto death probe could mirror the UN inquiry into the killing of Lebanese ex-prime minister Rafiq Hariri in 2005.”
Will this Clinton stand force her rivals to spell out in clearer terms their take on Pakistan? Would this development also push the Bush administration to take some dramatic steps to quell the rising crescendo of allegations and counter-allegations related to the recent assassination? Or, would all this noise die out in a few days when the hysteria subsides? The next 10 days could be crucial for…?
The Telegraph of Britain states that “with less than a week before the Iowa caucus, the crucial first round of state-by-state voting that will decide the nominees for the November 2008 US presidential election, the former Pakistan prime minister’s death is being treated as the sort of event that could sway the result.
“US presidential candidates from both parties have been competing to exploit Benazir Bhutto’s assassination, using it to advertise their foreign policy experience and personal contacts with Pakistan.
“Some candidates were left embarrassed by their reactions. Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor, expressed ‘our sincere concern and apologies for what has happened in Pakistan’. His campaign later issued a statement saying he meant ‘sympathies’ not ‘apologies’.”
The Bhutto assassination has all the potential to snowball into a major controversy if one reads the recent media reports. “It was a story CNN’s Wolf Blitzer hoped he’d never have to report – an e-mail sent to him through an intermediary by Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto complaining about her security. Conditions of use: only if she were killed.
“Bhutto, who was assassinated on Thursday, wrote to Blitzer that if anything happened to her, ‘I would hold (Pakistani President Pervez) Musharraf responsible’.” Read the full AP story here… And the CNN report here… Was she shot dead?…Read a sensational story here… And a tribute…“The Lioness Fallen”.
The media reports are clear that Bhutto assassination has shocked the world and threatens to destabilise an entire region. Rageh Omaar, who last month spent two days with the former leader of Pakistan in her home town, assesses what her death means for the future of her country, and the war on terror. Read the ‘final interview’ here…
There is another topical story “Row breaks out over Benazir Bhutto’s death” by Isambard Wilkinson, Pakistan Correspondent, and Bonnie Malkin in The Telegraph…please click here to read…
(Photo: courtesy Reuters)
(EDITOR’S NOTE: The author of this story is veteran journalist Swaraaj Chauhan who writes from India for TMV.)
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5 Responses to “US Presidential Election & Benazir Bhutto’s Death”
Do you really think that the assassination of someone that probably ten percent of Americans could identify in a country that less than half of Americans could find on a map would affect the election at all.
If immigration can barely get the needle to move, why would Pakistan have any effect on Amerian voters.
I also found it odd that the links were to British newspapers. Maybe you should go looking for links at the Des Moines Register or the Quad Cities Times to see what voters in Iowa think about it.
There’s nothing odd about linking to British newspapers at all. I was in Spain and did my stories on their first democratic vote in some 30 years, when they approved the democratic constitution under Franco. To do my stories I talked with people, read the Spanish press extensively and talked with analysts (that were either top Spanish editors or diplomats who analyzed Spain for their embassies). The British press has some EXCELLENT campaign coverage. I will be linking to more BBC stories in 2008 as well as stories from the British press. The technique is the same: they are reading through tons of stuff in the U.S. press plus they all have reporters in the United States or if not reporters that are staffers ‘stringers” who get paid per piece (like I did overseas).
I also do content – it WILL influence the vote since even a cow on a field in Iowa knows that Pakistan has nukes, is a key player in the war on terror and that we have teeny-weenie bit of a problem in that part of the world with Islamic fundamentalists who’d much prefer a Taliban-type society than some of the governments they have now that are based on western model governments (India, Pakistan and Bangladesh are offshoots of the British-style democracies).
The real issue here is, that nation has been such a mess that life will go on without her there, as well as in the rest of the world, and Pakistan is expected to remain a mess for years, at least.
Nobody could have predicted to the date and time that Bhutto was assassinated, but nobody who is intelligent and informed is surprised at all. Her death was not predicted, but was of course fully anticipated.
Most who know about this event also know that it is not the only such event, nor does it involve the only nation that is currently in trouble with terrorism as well as “failed state” phenomena.
Will Bhutto’s murder affect the election here in the States? Not really. Those of us who follow world news see it as the Pakistani, not US, matter that it is.
Now if we’re asked to help in the frontier areas, Pakistan (not Bhutto’s murder) might get more news time here and affect the election (not limited to exploitation of terrorism by Giuliani).
The Musharraf Problem
Pakistan’s Problem With Democracy
Think “BBC News” for radio, as well. The UK media are better and more knowledgeable about world affairs (due to the UK’s empirical and other foreign history) than US sources.
I even enjoy the Economist’s views of the USA and events here in the States.