State-sponsored suppression of political opposition is the first step for a polity’s regression to political tyranny. Use of terror and torture without recourse to trial is the second. Use of extremist forces to kill political opponents is the third and final step to assure the death of democracy. Benazir Bhutto (1953-2007), the former prime minister of Pakistan, was well aware of all three steps when she boldly opposed General Parvez Musharraf’s declaration of a state of emergency and suspension of human rights and free speech in Pakistan on November 3, 2007. Ms. Bhutto’s political career was shaped by the struggle between populist and absolutist power, and informed by the moderate and extremist ideologies, that often threatened to obstruct democratic lifelines of Pakistan. These struggles were rehearsed within the family as they were performed on the public stage. Her father and political mentor was the former Pakistani Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the founder of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), who was executed in 1979 on charges of having ordered the murder of a political opponent. Her brother Murtaza opposed her allegedly ambitious “misrepresentation” of their father’s democratic political legacy; a family dispute that led to her brief political falling-out with her mother Nusret in the early 90s. Her husband Asif Ali Zardari—one of the main reasons for her last departure from Pakistan in 1999—faced many charges of corruption and political opposition on grounds of abuse of spousal power.

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