STEVE INSKEEP, host:
We're going to go next to Islamabad, Pakistan's capital. That's where we found Graham Usher, a freelance reporter.
Philip Reeves just described relative quiet, for the moment, anyway, in Karachi. How are things in Islamabad?
Mr. GRAHAM USHER (Freelance Journalist): Well, it's relatively quiet here as well. Islamabad, to be honest, is not really a hot bed of activity. Unlike Karachi, it's not a base for Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan Peoples Party. Even so, last night, we did see violence on the streets here. Youths started to burn tires and trashed government buildings, with the particular target being all signs of the ruling Muslim League Party, which of course, is the political party of the president, Pervez Musharraf.
INSKEEP: And, of course, here in the capital where Pervez Musharraf dominates, it is said by government officials that they're going to go ahead with this election on January 8th, although the leader of the opposition - or one of the leaders of the opposition - is dead. Can there be a serious election under these circumstances?
Mr. USHER: Well that is the big question. What the caretaker prime minister said this morning was that, as far as he was aware, the election on the 8th of January would go ahead as planned, but it would be subject to discussions with other political parties.
Now I think the consensus of all the political parties, opposition and some even in the government, is that you cannot have elections under the current circumstances. We are now in the throes of an extreme wave of violence, not simply the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.
In the last six months, we've seen over 800 people killed as a result of an Islamic Taliban-led insurgency. And those militants have made it clear that they will target the elections, as long as the Pakistani Army goes after them in the border areas between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
In those circumstances, it is very difficult to say how you could have an environment that is conducive to anything resembling free and fair elections.
INSKEEP: Graham Usher in Islamabad, I want to ask you about another aspect of this. Now that a day has passed anyway, what's the sense about whether this assassination, or how this assassination, has affected the government of President Pervez Musharraf?
Mr. USHER: Well, I think it's reflected very badly on him and particularly his ruling Muslim lead party. Many within Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan Peoples Party, hold that party indirectly responsible for the killing of their leader. Either as the result of lack security arrangements that were in evidence at Rawalpindi yesterday or perhaps the most seriously because they suspect the elements of the regime still have links with the radical Islamic groups that might have a common interest in removing Benazir Bhutto who is probably or was the most popular politician in Pakistan and was very much opposed, if not to President Musharraf, then to the ruling fleet around him.
So there is a very real suspicion that Musharraf and the people that are loyal to him, hold some kind of responsibility what happened yesterday. And unless there is a clear international and independent inquiry into what happened, I think it's going to be very difficult for Musharraf to shake off the stain of some degree of culpability for what happened.
INSKEEP: Although you mentioned it makes him look bad. Is there some way that he gains from this death?
Mr. USHER: I don't think so. He is very much needed Benazir Bhutto to participate in the elections for them to be seen as any way credible and legitimate.
Now that the other Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has said that his party will boycott, really - you'll have a situation where the majority of the political parties in Pakistan are boycotting the elections. All sections of Pakistan civil society including the lawyers, the students, the judges are calling for a boycott of the elections. These elections will be really a charade and it doesn't matter who wins. They will not enjoy popular legitimacy in the eyes of the 160 million citizens of this country.
INSKEEP: And Musharraf wouldn't get that reinforcement that he wanted or at least that his allies in the United States want?
Mr. USHER: Exactly. The how point of the alliance between Benazir Bhutto and President Musharraf that the Americans have been trying to broker for the last six months, is that the Americans are aware that Musharraf is a deeply unpopular leader and he needed the civilian legitimacy that would have been accorded him by Benazir Bhutto becoming the next prime minister.
INSKEEP: Graham Usher is a freelance reporter in Islamabad, Pakistan, and you can read an analysis of Pakistan's violent politics at npr.org.
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