ISLAMABAD, May 5: Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Chairperson and former prime minister Benazir Bhutto on Thursday said Pakistan needed the rule of law rather than mere elections. “I used to think naively that election alone could change things for the better,” a PPP press release quoted her as saying while speaking at the Oxford Union Debating Society in London.

“Now I realise that a country needs more than democratic elections - it needs the rule of law,” she said. She said democracy was not just a process for elections but a process of governing.

An election, she said, could bring in a new parliament and a new government but not a new judiciary or bureaucracy or an intelligence system.

“It cannot give acknowledgement to the victims of tyranny - those who lost their lives, their livelihoods, their families, their peace of mind, who were tortured, imprisoned or forced to flee to the foreign lands. The suffering is not of one person, not of one family, not of one political party, but of an entire nation.”

Regarding Pakistan’s political situation, she said issues of poverty, gender equality and minority rights called for attention, as were issues of unemployment and inflation, but she regretted that “anti-democratic forces didn’t respond to the cries of the people”.

She said the story of Pakistan did not have to turn out this way and added that she was convinced that ultimately things would be very different.

Regarding challenges facing Pakistan, the PPP chairperson said the country was “an example of a nation where the forces of tyranny, terrorism, proliferation and a militant interpretation of Islam by the margins mingle to create a difficult challenge”.

She said the international community had decided to throw its weight behind a military dictator following 9/11 though there were worries that its inability to facilitate Pakistan’s transition to civilian and democratic rule could undermine its objectives in the long run.

Referring to what she called “enormous constitutional powers” given to the presidency, Ms Bhutto said these constitutional changes amounted to creating a civilian dictator, while the argument that an all-powerful president would help facilitate withdrawal of the army to the barracks and prevent recurrence of martial law had also not materialised.

“Even as political freedoms were denied, economic and social successes remained a distant dream,” she said. “While the elites thrived, the large masses of people lived in poverty and backwardness, eking out a miserable life hindered by disease, malnutrition and infant mortality.”

She said this “embittered generation” must be rescued with a political system that was representative and accountable to people.

Ms Bhutto said the military dictatorship was exploiting the war against terror to keep itself in power at the cost of constitutional rights of its people.