MICHELE NORRIS, Host:
This is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Michele Norris.
ROBERT SIEGEL, Host:
And I'm Robert Siegel.
Just as Pakistan is trying to bring back order to the streets after Benazir Bhutto's assassination, violence has erupted again. At least 24 people were killed today by a suicide bomber in the city of Lahore. Most of the dead were policemen. The attacks are adding to the instability and unease in the country at a critical time, ahead of parliamentary elections next month.
NPR's South Asia correspondent, Philip Reeves, reports.
PHILIP REEVES: It happened in the heart of the city, outside the high court. A group of policemen was at the courthouse gate, deployed there ahead of a lawyers' demonstration. A suicide bomber ran up and detonated, killing and wounding scores of people.
Most of Pakistan's big cities have become all too familiar with bombings and bloodshed, but its cultural capital, Lahore, has mostly escaped the violence that's blighted Pakistan recently. Some 20 suicide bombings in three months, generally targeting the police, the military, and the intelligence services.
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REEVES: Today's attack happened as Pakistan's beginning to return to life after the trauma of Benazir Bhutto's assassination. Political parties are mobilizing again, ahead of the parliamentary elections now postponed to the 18th of February. They're doing so amid a mood of profound distress and also fear, reinforced by today's events.
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REEVES: Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan Peoples Party is already alleging election skullduggery. This week, the party summoned the media to complain.
Unidentified Man: We are collecting (speaking in foreign language).
REEVES: A party spokesman alleged the authorities had arrested a large number of its party activists in Sindh province, Bhutto's stronghold. Party workers have been picked up on charges linked to the rioting there that erupted after Bhutto's death, causing many millions of dollars worth of damage. But the spokesman said the real reason was to stop the party workers campaigning in the elections.
Pakistan's president, Pervez Musharraf, says he's taking the country towards democracy. He denies the elections will be rigged. Safeguards are in place, he says.
PERVEZ MUSHARRAF: The system, inherently, is fair. There were a few bugs which we'll remove to ensure that elections will be fair and transparent - more fair, more transparent.
REEVES: Many Pakistanis are unconvinced. And they question how much power Musharraf is willing to give away.
BABAR SATTAR: If the elections take place, they're free and fair, and there is a two-thirds majority in the parliament which can remove the general, then that's real transfer and a real transition to democracy in my opinion.
REEVES: That's Babar Sattar, a lawyer and political commentator. He says the real transition to democracy he's talking about is not a foregone conclusion. Bhutto's party is the largest and best organized party. It's expected to get the biggest vote, buoyed by sympathy for Bhutto. But to change the constitution, the party and its allies need to get a two-thirds majority in Pakistan's lower house of parliament, the national assembly. Only then would it stand a chance of removing some of Musharraf's key powers, including the right to appoint the military chiefs and to sack the prime minister and dissolve the parliament. Even then, any changes would have to go through Pakistan's senate. But if there's no two-thirds majority, all bets are off.
SATTAR: If it's a hung parliament, then we are back to the situation where there'll continue to be disputes between the parliament, the executive and the judiciary.
REEVES: In that situation, says Babar Sattar, the judiciary would be likely to back Musharraf. After all, the main reason Musharraf imposed the recent state of emergency in Pakistan was to purge the supreme court of judges who challenged him and to replace them with more compliant judges.
But some of Musharraf's critics, like General Hamid Gul, a former head of Pakistan's intelligence agency, the ISI, says Musharraf has no intention of ever sharing the levers of power.
HAMID GUL: Not with Pervez Musharraf. I know him. He has been my student. He has been my subordinate. I know it is not in his genes. He will never accept any kind of a partnership with anyone in any political force.
REEVES: Philip Reeves, NPR News, Islamabad.