The assassination of Benazir Bhutto does not mean the death of democracy in Pakistan — provided that elections are held soon.

The instinct of President Pervez Musharraf may well be to postpone the vote, due on January 8, and to reimpose the state of emergency that he has only just lifted, arguing that otherwise violence will sweep Pakistan. The immediate condemnation from Moscow, expressing fears that Ms Bhutto's death would trigger a wave of terrorism — gave implicit support for any crackdown.

But the Pakistan People's Party, which under Bhutto had remained the premier force in national politics, will very likely want the polls to go ahead. The party, providing that it can produce a plausible leader, could hope to sweep to a powerful lead on the back of the "martyr effect". Britain and the US are also likely to argue that elections are the best way to retrieve stability.

Bhutto's death will be a terrible shock to Pakistan, but it is hard to say that it is a surprise. As a woman, and from the poorer province of the Sindh rather than the Punjab heartland of Pakistan's establishment, she seemed to hold out the hope of turning Pakistan into a more modern country, although corruption charges from her two spells as Prime Minister were still simmering in Swiss courts. When she returned after eight years abroad, in flight from corruption charges, many reckoned that her life expectancy could be measured in weeks if not hours.

Q&A: the murder of Benazir Bhutto

Times South Asia Correspondent asks who had most to gain from killing the Pakistan People's Party leader

Multimedia

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BACKGROUND

• Pakistan in chaos as Benazir Bhutto assassinated

• Who killed Benazir Bhutto? Main suspects

• Obituary: Benazir Bhutto, 1953-2007

• Can democracy survive Bhutto killing?

Related Links

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• Obituary: Benazir Bhutto, 1953-2007

• Who killed Benazir Bhutto? Main suspects

She was lucky to survive the suicide blast at her homecoming parade in Karachi, where her party workers had drummed up hundreds of thousands of supporters for a rally. But the casualness and fatalism of those workers in providing her security made a successful attempt on her life seem only a matter of time. Even the day after the Karachi blast they allowed hundreds of foreign media workers bearing heavy electronic equipment to crowd into her family compound. Many of them were not scanned for explosives, a gesture at security which bore no resemblance to a modern, determined attempt to protect the life of an irreplaceable leader.

Rallies such as today's — announced only a day in advance for security reasons — posed an obvious risk. Bhutto was much criticised for the vanity of the Karachi rally, where the blast killed about 140. But after Musharraf imposed a state of emergency in November, which shut down private television stations, the option of "virtual campaigning" was closed to her. Even though channels were back on air in recent weeks, their political content was excised — the condition that General Musharraf had imposed for their return. Rallies in key towns such as Rawalpindi became irresistible, if still reckless.

It is a fair bet that Ms Bhutto's fervent supporters will blame Musharraf. Even though the Karachi bomb followed explicit threats on her life by Islamic militants — and to many, they are still the most plausible perpetrators — many PPP supporters assumed that it was the work of the intelligence agencies. Even those standing by the bodies of injured relatives in the Jinnah Post-graduate Medical Centre, the city's main hospital, firmly asserted that Musharraf and intelligence agents should bear responsibility, not Bhutto.

They will be even more inclined to see the hand of Musharraf in the assassination because it happened in Rawalpindi, the garrison town which is the head of Pakistan's military, and the site of Army House, where Musharraf lives (and where he has refused to leave, even though he has stepped down as head of the Army).

The threat of violent protest across the country, but particularly in Bhutto's home province of Sindh, is no exaggeration by the Musharraf camp. Judging by his recent reflexes, Musharraf may well invoke that threat of violence as justification for a new security crackdown.

In that, he is likely to be backed by General Ashfaq Kiyani, a loyalist whom he recently inserted as his replacement as Army chief. But this will be the first test of whether Kiyani's loyalty holds, and of whether he shares Musharraf's tactics for confronting the terrorist threat.

The most contentious question confronting Musharraf is whether to press ahead with the elections due in less than two weeks. His instinct — again, judging by his imposition of house arrest on Bhutto and her supporters after her return, and his wavering commitment at that point to the polls — may well be for a postponement.

But he will come under enormous pressure from those who want to see Pakistan move back towards democracy. Britain and the US have made these elections a central plank of their policy — even while acknowledging that these polls might not be quite free and fair. They encouraged an alliance between Bhutto and Musharraf, hoping that this compromise, democratically unsatisfactory in so many ways, would still deliver the security and political maturity that Pakistan needs.

What happens to the PPP now? Many in the party believe that that martyr effect will propel them to victory if the elections do go ahead. But the PPP will need a plausible leader; even though Bhutto spent eight years in exile, the feudal power of her family name made it inconceivable that anyone else would take over.

But now that she is gone (and her children are thought to be too young), other names will emerge. The most plausible immediate candidate is that of Ameen Fahim, party vice-president, who ran the party during her years of exile. From a powerful feudal family in Sindh province, just like her, he is thought to have the political reach to pull together the party's factions and take it towards victory.

Others are less likely. Aitzaz Ahsan, perhaps the most famous lawyer after Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, has led the fight against military rule. But his relations with Bhutto had become tense; she had asked him to clarify whether he put his alliance with the judiciary above that of the party. In any case, he has no geographical base of support.

There is, too, her husband, Asif Zardari. But he is not a creditable figure. He lacks her charisma and, during her time in office, was widely known as "Mr 10 per cent". He also stayed in exile to avoid corruption charges (which the Bhuttos said were politically motivated) but, suffering heart trouble, did not return with her in October. In an interview on her return, I asked her whether he would join her. "No", she said emphatically. "He will look after the children, and in any case, he is ill."

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