Bhutto behind barbed wire

Last Modified: 13 Nov 2007
By: Lindsey Hilsum

Benazir Bhutto is under house arrest and kept apart from her supporters by barbed wire barricades and hundreds of troops.

It's groundhog day. Last Friday, Islamabad; today police were barricading Bhutto in a house in Lahore. Now, as then, the authorities prevented a planned protest march; a few of her supporters trickled through and courted arrest.

They want the world to see them as victims of President Musharraf's emergency rule.

'I would like to ask is democracy more important than the country?'
President Musharraf

Behind the police lines, unable to meet the press in person, Benazir Bhutto was talking to journalists on her mobile phone, while 160 miles away in Islamabad the General was defending his position.

He said, "I would like to ask is democracy more important than the country? If the country is going down and becoming a failed state, is arresting that more important or running a democratic system, so called democratic system more important? Which one is more important? This we feel the government saves the nation." Three young men set a car on fire, just a few yards from where Ms Bhutto was staying. But Pakistan isn't burning. Many may be unhappy about the state of emergency, but that doesn't mean they'll fight for politicians like her.

Benazir Bhutto came back to Pakistan with the blessing of President Musharraf, and the possibility of a power sharing deal. But over the last few days that's all shifted. She's now trying to set herself up as a real alternative to the General, but, despite his unpopularity, she's unable to get people out on the streets.

She needs to mobilise opposition here in Lahore, even though this isn't her power base. Yet we found indifference and even hostility both to her and to General Musharraf's plan for elections under emergency rule.

Sporadic protests won't bring General Musharraf down, but Benazir Bhutto is now trying to unite opposition.

His plan to remain president and hold elections under emergency rule are looking ever less likely to succeed.