benazir bhutto

A country that's broke, beset by radical insurgents and on the front lines of global warming needs leadership its citizens can trust. But Thursday's elections follow a familiar pattern of revolving door politics.

Out is former prime minister Imran Khan, who first lost his coalition and then his freedom after feuding with the military-backed establishment.

In is a scion of Pakistani politics, Nawaz Sharif, whose return from exile was made possible by a Supreme Court rule change that enabled him to run despite a corruption conviction. The same Sharif once ousted in a coup is back in favour. Why? What's the army's calculation?

And how does a youthful nation break out of the dynastic politics of old? The third player in Thursday's elections is Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, son of assassinated prime minister Benazir Bhutto. Why do dynasties dominate in Pakistan, and what’s the alternative?

Produced by Charles Wente, Guillaume Gougeon and Imen Mellaz.

Sie galt in ihrer Heimat Pakistan und im Westen als Hoffnungsträgerin der Demokratie: Benazir Bhutto kam aus der pakistanischen Elite und trat das politische Erbe ihres ermordeten Vaters an. Als erste Frau wurde sie Premierministerin eines muslimischen Landes. Sie wurde verehrt und gehasst, stolperte über Korruptionsvorwürfe und wagte 2007 ein Comeback - das durch einen Anschlag jäh beendet wurde.

In 1988, a 15-year-old Kamila Shamsie stayed up all night to watch Pakistan elect its first woman prime minister. Years later, and politics is still very much at the centre of the writer’s life – on and off the page.

 

The Pakistani / British writer has long been a vocal critic of the UK government’s immigration and civil rights policies, and yet she only felt able to write Home Fire – which offers a piercing critique of Islamophobia within the British political establishment – after she became a citizen of the country.

 

Today on Ways to Change the World, Kamila Shamsie joins Krishnan Guru-Murthy to discuss her Pakistani upbringing, how politics shaped her writing and her view of Suella Braverman’s ‘racist’ immigration policy.

 

Produced by Silvia Maresca and Alice Wagstaffe