(ajz) What ever else the mind-numbing killing of Benazir Bhutto in Thursday’s suicide attack will mean for Pakistan’s future, there is little doubt that politics in this south Asian country will never be the same again. Bhutto's death was like a chronicle foretold. She had escaped a bigger suicide attack upon her return from exile in Karachi two months ago - a manifestation of the threat to her life, which extremists had pledged to carry out before her arrival. These threats emerged after much publicised talks of a power-sharing deal with General Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's president, which would enable her to return home and participate in the elections in exchange for allowing the beleaguered general to get himself re-elected as president. While the opposition resigned en masse from the parliament to block Musharraf's re-election in a year that saw a rejuvenated judiciary challenge the president's authority, Bhutto’s Pakistan People's Party merely abstained from voting providing the general an easy run. The extremists were annoyed with Bhutto for her unqualified support to the US 'war on terror' and her willingness to play ball with the Bush administration. This is a policy that Musharraf has found to his chagrin remains hugely unpopular in Pakistan but, which was seen by her party as a politically correct course in order to win back power. Bhutto's apparent grandstanding in offering to give the International Atomic Energy Agency access to disgraced nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan to probe his role in nuclear proliferation, and allow American troops to enter the Pakistani hinterland to take out al-Qaeda, sparked outrage even in the intelligentsia. However, the general consensus was that she remained the country's biggest hope in pushing Musharraf for a transition to genuine democracy, which is what she professed to do in defence of her negotiations with a military ruler. The Bush administration had been engaged in hectic diplomacy for more than a year to arrange a political marriage between Musharraf and Bhutto, a factor which contributed in alienating many of her fringe supporters and pushing them to search for an alternative. To Bhutto's credit, she had managed to create space for other political aspirants despite her initial attempt at a solo flight, notably former Nawaz Sharif, the former prime minister. He, too, is credited for showing maturity in his readiness to join forces against Musharraf's alleged attempt to manipulate the forthcoming elections.

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