Pakistan ponders meaning of democracy

By Lyse Doucet | BBC News, Pakistan

From where I stood outside the parliament, I could see the scrum bristling with microphones and the impressive alphabet of Pakistani private TV channels - Geo, AAJ, ARY, Dawn, to name just a few.

Then one journalist seized the moment and thrust his microphone ahead of the rest.

"What's your definition of democracy?" he shouted.

Pakistan's information minister, finely suited and finely spoken, responded in impeccable English.

Then the same journalist came back at him, rising a bit more on his toes, in this little dance between Pakistani journalists and officialdom.

"Does it include the manipulation of democracy?" he demanded.

That is the question in Pakistan today: what does democracy mean?

Ballot-box victory

What does it mean in a country that has had both extraordinary successes and spectacular failures in the politics of the people?

Since the shocking assassination of Benazir Bhutto, archive footage of a 36-year-old woman smiling in her shimmering emerald green tunic and trademark white scarf taking the oath of office as prime minister in 1988, has been played again and again.

It represented a resounding victory won through the ballot box after years of repressive martial law.

"She looks so young," I remarked to a fellow journalist who, like me, was in Pakistan to report on Benazir Bhutto's rise to power as the first female prime minister in the Islamic world.

I suppose we were all younger as we witnessed this history, so perhaps her youth did not seem so impressive at the time.

I watched the images again this week and one caught my eye: the young Benazir signs a gold embossed book and, as she does so, steals a shy look past the edge of her head scarf at the establishment figure of the elderly president, Ghulam Ishaq Khan.

Less than two years later he sacked her for alleged incompetence and corruption.

Fateful rally

In 1988 the mood in Pakistan had been of heady excitement but also deep uncertainty.

The rule of the people seemed to have returned but how would it sit with a powerful army grown accustomed to being completely in charge?

Twenty years on Pakistanis are going to the ballot box again.

Once again it is meant to move this country from military to civilian rule and, once again, Benazir Bhutto is the most recognised face.

But this time she is just an image from archive footage on huge, brightly painted campaign billboards.

And she is a voice, a ghost that hangs over this process.

Full story @ http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/7247096.stm