"Chairperson For Life"

Gone the life. The Pakistan People's Party will either dissolve with this latest loss - having had in its history only two leaders; Benazir Bhutto's father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, and she herself - or they will allow themselves to be led by another who possibly may attempt a trifle more determinedly to deliver what she did not - "Bread, Clothing, Housing".

So many hopes were hitched to her powerful aspirations. Her death has laid bare the desperation of the poor of the country. Those whom she pledged herself as a voice to demand their due. When news of her death reached the street the response was "Long live Bhutto!" She did not, however, live very long. Disappointing them in this as much as her inability to deliver them from poverty.

She was the acclaimed and beloved voice of the oppressed of her country. And with her death a dementia of grief propelled mourners into the streets to riot, to slash and burn and bellow their defiance of fated destiny. Destroying, in the process, public property, edifices and structures owned by government in answer to some of their needs.

She was their champion, their hero, their hope for the future. Believers, all. She had already had two opportunities to alleviate their pain, but they still trusted she would finally make good her promises. Despite her life of privilege, her autocratic rule, her political maneuverings that seemed to leave no opportunity to prosecute their case, they still trusted.

The common people of Pakistan eking out a living for themselves and their families, entrusting their future prospects to a woman who lived in accustomed luxury, loved the finer things of life, built a breathless marble monument to her father in their heartland, while somehow managing to overlook the vagueness of accomplishment as compared to promises pledged in their support.

Their adoration of her presence and her promises, their enthusiasm for her stated purpose, thrilled her. Their devotion to her and their loud expressions of approval, of gratitude, of hope, and the huge crowds that came out to hear her riveting speeches pleased her no end, gave her the attention she craved and the energy that spurred her to carry on.

She spoke passionately of the rights of women, spoke of herself as the champion of the poor. A defender of their rights in a country that gave them no rights, she pressed for democracy as the solution to all of the country's ills and disequilibriums. A feminist, a socialist, a democrat, and an enigma. Champion of the poor, the uneducated, her extravagance unremarked.

Speaking an ethos of liberalism she ruled as an autocrat. Speaking impassioned disaffection for the plight of the poor, she did little to advance their cause. Speaking of her anger at the presence of fundamentalist jihadists, she tolerated and even encouraged the infrastructure that led to their increase in numbers.

A humble patrician, a patriot whose destiny was irrevocably wound around her country's advance into the 20th century, she was convinced only her leadership would surmount all difficulties. A zealot, a messianic figure of determined conquest. Her ambition to lead damped down her fears of mortality.

She knew how vulnerable she was; her conviction gave her courage to face what she felt would not be the inevitable for her. She faced it, and it was.