Ab in ko Scotland Yard yaad aa gaya (Now, it has occurred to them, this Scotland Yard), thundered Asif Ali Zardari before condemning the postponement of general elections, his anger evident from afar at a news conference following Benazir Bhutto’s assassination.

The boiling point contrasted with the cold evening in Naudero, close to the last resting place of slain former prime minister. The response by her husband was the first reaction to Musharraf’s decision to finally invite foreign experts to investigate the assassination and postpone elections scheduled for January 8.

These will now be held four days after Valentine’s Day, on February 18, leaving Zardari fuming at what appeared to him like an indecent proposal.

The de facto Pakistan People’s Party leader and former premier Nawaz Sharif had both declared their intention to go to the originally planned vote in spite of the mourning — and in memory of Benazir’s struggle for democracy.

For Benazir’s party, the decision had a simple logic: it would channel the giant wave of sympathy and anger across Pakistan to its advantage. For Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-N, it presented an opportunity to strike at Musharraf’s civilian base, former ruling party Pakistan Muslim League-Q, in the same torrent of mass fury, especially in the strategically significant Punjab province.   

The delay in polls, announced by a dithering Election Commission of Pakistan, which thrice baulked on giving a decision in as many days before it was endorsed by Musharraf in a nationally televised address has spawned a debate, which is likely to dominate the campaign and lead to a certain rethink in strategy. 

Both the Election Commission, headed by a retired justice, Qazi Muhammad Farooq, and Musharraf cited the countrywide unrest following the assassination of Benazir, which they said had badly damaged poll record and equipment, as the reason for what they described as an inevitable delay in the January 8 vote.

Some 60 people were killed in the violence, eleven district offices of the Election Commission torched and several offices of the returning officers ransacked in Benazir’s home province, Sindh. Now army and paramilitary troops will be deployed during the polls.

The Election Commission says political parties were consulted in the decision to put off polls, but many including the mainstream parties of Benazir and Sharif only spoke about being insulted. Even the friendly right-wing Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam of Fazlur Rehman, Opposition Leader in the outgoing National Assembly — lower house of Pakistan’s bicameral parliament — claimed that his party was not invited for a discussion although he felt that it did not really matter.

Postponement appeared to be a foregone conclusion in the immediate aftermath of Benazir’s assassination, which in fact, prompted her erstwhile rival and current ally in the struggle for restoration of democracy, Sharif, to announce a boycott. The PML-N chief could be forgiven for concluding that the rudderless people’s party would be in no position to participate and therefore, stay away from vote.

Even the Musharraf-led current caretaker administration successfully deluded itself with the apparent writing on the wall.

A reflection of this was evident when, in a point scoring gambit, they publicly left the onus on the People’s Party to decide when they were ready for polls. Musharraf was, in fact, quoted in news reports to have said that since Benazir’s was the aggrieved party, their opinion on the polls would count.

Zardari, however, called the regime’s bluff and announced — on the third day of the assassination — that despite the mourning, Benazir’s party would take the fight to the ‘Qatil’ League on the appointed date.

He reinforced the view that his 19-year-old son, Bilawal, the new chairman of the party, described in recall of is mother about democracy being “the best form of revenge” by appealing to Sharif to rescind his decision to boycott the polls.

The PML-N chief, whose earlier hasty call had left him in a bind, wasted little time in taking up the face-saver.

In an atmosphere of uncertainty marked by cynicism, the general consensus among pundits and hoi polloi alike is that the elections have been purposely delayed to provide a breather to the PML-Q, for which Musharraf has in the recent past — in thinly veiled references — to the nation advised support at the hustings as a stated policy of continuity.

PLM-Q chief Shujaat Hussain continued to suggest before the Election Commission’s eventual announcement of a delay that his party was ready for the now-postponed January 8 polls.

The general perception, helped by strong allegations and even reported evidence of rigging, reinforced Hussain’s views. But all that was before Benazir’s assassination.

Aware of the cataclysmic shift in its aftermath, the PML-Q developed cold feet and was reportedly seeking to delay the vote in the hope that public sentiment—currently loaded in favour of Benazir’s party — would ebb and eventually, help it retrieve lost ground.

Hussain gave the game away when as well taking a public posture of battle readiness he said in the same breath that the situation was bad enough for polls to be postponed.  He admitted that at least two provincial chapters of his party were staunchly opposed to an election under the prevailing law and order situation.

Benazir’s death has not only altered everyone’s election plan but more importantly, will be decisive in the eventual outcome and formation of the next government if the vote materializes.

It is a moot point if a delay by six weeks will calm inflamed People’s Party voters, and a large base of undecided voters before Benazir’s assassination, who saw Sharif’s PML-N as an alternative but the fact that he was not being provided a level-playing field after the dubious rejection of his nomination papers — thanks to irreconcilable differences with Musharraf — had rendered that choice largely ineffective.

The hitherto undecided voters will now be tempted to go with the sway, knowing that the ballot would almost certainly make a difference, especially since the establishment is no longer in the familiar vantage position to shortchange the People’s Party’s winning prospects.

In life, Benazir was a major headache for her adversaries but it is beyond the grave that she is now predicted to send a chill down their spines.