More grist for the conspiracy mill

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Suddenly, it seems, Pakistan is facing new volatility. And in the super-charged atmosphere prevailing after the assassination for former prime minster Benazir Bhutto, some folks smell a conspiracy in advance of parliamentary elections.

Just around the time that Pakistanis began recovering from the violence, looting and arson ignited by Bhutto’s slaying on Dec. 27, electricity cuts lasting up to 12 hours erupted across the country.

News media also began reporting nationwide shortages of natural gas, used for heating and cooking, and flour, used to bake chapattis, the flat bread that is a staple at almost every meal in this impoverished country of 165 million.

Over the last few days, newspapers have been filled with stories about people desperately searching for flour, cities and towns shivering in chilly, rain-dampened winter dark, motorists unable to fill up because powerless gas stations can’t run their pumps and officials warning against hoarding and price-gouging.

Television news channels have been airing video footage of angry Pakistanis waiting in long lines to snap up scarce supplies of flour and bottled gas, or staging protests over the shortages and the price increases they have triggered.

A friend angrily recounted how during a visit to Lahore late last week, the motorized rickshaw in which he was riding ran out of petrol. He and the driver were forced to push the heavy, three-wheeled contraption from blacked-out petrol station to blacked-out petrol station until they found one that was able to sell them some fuel.

National, provincial and local officials have been offering various explanations for the shortages.

Dawn, an English-language newspaper, on Sunday quoted sources at the Ministry of Food and Agriculture as saying that farmers under-planted the winter wheat crop by a total of 200,000 hectares because of a water shortage and higher fertilizer and seed prices.

The News on Sunday quoted Finance Ministry sources as saying that winter weather had driven up demand for power, creating an unprecedented peak shortfall of 3,600 MW.

Power cuts have reportedly forced the closure of steel plants and flourmills, throwing thousands of workers out of jobs. The disruptions are expected to stunt economic growth that officials say has already been undercut by the bloody rampages that paralyzed the country after Bhutto’s assassination.

The Finance Ministry sources also warned the News on Sunday that Pakistanis should be ready to tolerate power shortages for years to come because the construction of five huge state-run hydroelectric projects is way behind schedule.

Some folks, however, wave off these explanations as nonsense. They see a sinister political plot.

Their reasoning goes something like this: Bhutto’s death has driven lingering popular dislike for Musharraf and the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Q through the roof because of widespread suspicions of official complicity.

Knowing they cannot win Feb. 18 parliamentary elections except by fraud so massive that it could not be hidden, this reasoning continues, they are deliberately withholding basic commodities and cutting power. The goal: ignite social unrest to justify the re-imposition of a national emergency and the indefinite postponement of the polls.

There is no proof to back up these contentions. Conspiracy theorizing and political intriguing are akin to national past-times in Pakistan, especially these days.

For his part, Musharraf has vowed that there will be no further delay in the polls postponed from Jan. 8 by Bhutto’s death.

That remains to be seen.