Ross, on Moveable Feast, writes:
Despite the prevailing opinion, Benazir’s death may offer new hope for democratic values: rights, the rule of law, and law enforcement.
Benazir Bhutto gave Pakistan false hope of these enlightened values two decades ago. In a shocking display of ineptitude, Pakistan’s first woman prime minister failed to pass a single piece of major legislation during her first 20 months in power. According to Amnesty International, Bhutto’s particular brand of democracy while in office – in the words of historian William Dalrymple, “elective feudalism” – brought some of the world’s highest numbers of extrajudicial killings, torture, and custodial deaths. Transparency International characterized hers as one of the world’s most corrupt governments.
