November 07, 2007 ... Team Kahn-Musharraff, 2008.

Pakistan has almost the same land area as Germany and France combined and has a population approximately one third of the EU. Furthermore, the politics of Pakistan is as complicated as EU politics including the complication of tribal and clan loyalties which answers to no other authority.

This is challenging environment for democracy. This is because democracy does not deliver any benefit to anyone beyond the circle of a small elite, or those who may, over time, aspire to that elite. In other words, Pakistani democracy is democracy without any clear virtue, as per the benefit of belonging to a state. And that is a challenge for all contemporary democracies.

Even so, it cannot help when deals are clandestinely pursued with the outcome of reinstalling the likes of Benazir Bhutto as Prime Minister. The same Prime Minister who has been credibly charged with more than a billion Dollars worth of graft and corruption in consort with her husband, a husband prosecuted for having an involvement in murdering Benazir Bhutto’s brother. From the proceeds of this graft and corruption, a mansion is owned and maintained in the United Kingdom, and a luxury home is maintained in Dubai, for example This democrat is living it large, at the expense of the Pakistani underclass.

Expecting Pakistani democracy to develop with clients such as Benazir Bhutto in charge, is beyond ridiculous.

In spite of being a little bit rough around the edges, and proclaiming a dislike for the Commander In Chief and his Pakistani counterpart, the better choice, to support and encourage, would have been Imran Kahn, currently on the run from house arrest.

Imran Kahn has a popular base of support in Pakistan, is Oxford University educated (not necessarily a virtue as his counterpart has demonstrated :-), is not tainted by graft and corruption, and is an advocate of law and a judiciary unimpeded by the legislature and executive.

Pakistan is a challenging environment for democracy, but that challenge will not be surmounted by way of the poor choice of Benazir Bhutto, even if it does seem like the path of least resistance to her western sponsors.