New Delhi: “Pakistan is currently a tinder box. Extremists have made inroads into the very structure of government. Pakistan faces Talibanisation and Balkanisation.”
These were the strong words of Benazir Bhutto, twice the premier of the country who, on her part, played no small role in its Talibanisation.
But Benazir's book Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy and the West is touted as her last words before the bomber assassin struck, although the timing of its worldwide release on Tuesday may have everything to do with the elections next week .
“Monitoring authorities around the world have said that these elections are partly rigged,” said Benazir’s widower, Asif Ali Zardari.
There are only five days to go before voting gets underway, but Pakistan is showing little enthusiasm for the electoral exercise.
Fear of suicide bombers runs high and candidates for the national or provincial assemblies are wary of being seen too much in public,
Despite that, muck continues to fly everywhere.
Pakistan ambassador Mahmud Ali Durrani protested the allegations.
"He (Musharraf) is not going to rig elections in any way, and the system, the mechanics set in place if you look at it in all fairness, it is very very difficult for any party to rig it,” he said. “There is an interim government, the old players who were ruling the country are not there.”
In the middle of all this, Pakistan's ambassador to Afghanistan disappeared in the Khyber agency.
There is speculation that the Taliban are holding him and want to exchange him for Mansoor Dadullah, the Taliban commander captured in Baluchistan on Monday.
Two engineers of the atomic energy commission have also disappeared from roughly the same area.
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