Loyalty, belief in Bhutto set to garner Pak votes

Bhutto has become akin to a saint in her ancestral town of Larkana and her party is banking on such faith to garner votes.

The peasants who gather round a life-size poster of Benazir Bhutto believe it will help resolve a tribal dispute – and her party hopes such faith will translate into millions of votes.

The slain Pakistani opposition leader has become akin to a saint among people in her ancestral town of Larkana, ascribed with powers that most other candidates in next week’s elections can only dream of.

Larkana community leader Akhtar Mahoto said people not only bring verses by saints from the mystical Sufi strain of Islam to resolve local wrangles, now “the portrait of Benazir

is also added because she commands such respect.”

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“At a recent meeting the participants agreed to settle a long-standing dispute with a pledge, before Bhutto’s image, that they would not fight again,” Mahoto said.

“We consider these personalities as witness to our pledge and then swear on the Holy Koran to remain committed to our pledge,” he said.

Bhutto did not always have the same unifying power in life, as her assassination at a political rally in the northern city of Rawalpindi on December 27 showed.

But the two-term former prime minister nevertheless remained one of the only truly national leaders in a country riven by deep ethnic, religious, sectarian and political faultlines.

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Her Pakistan People’s Party is now counting on her to unite the country’s electorate against President Pervez Musharraf and also overcome some internal strife.

Famously superstitious in life, Bhutto’s new status in death chimes well with the folksy beliefs of the dustbowl farmers and warring clans in rural southern Sindh province, where she spent large parts of her childhood.