4 Challenge and Response A Case Study of Benazir Bhutto’s Twin Prime Ministerships

Benazir Bhutto happened to be the first constitutionally chosen female leader of any Muslim country in Modern times. She ascended to office amid the legacy of General Zia-ul-Haq’s regime and civil-military bureaucracy that prompted diverse deterrence for her governments and abstained her from the application of her constitutional power. The essence of challenges was mostly political, but the grounds that created these abysses were political and gender partiality. Based on the above discourse, this article attempts to underline the torments confronted by Benazir being the new chapter in our political society. This is the empirical account of Benazir’s twin governments grounded on the views of important politicians who sight and accompanied her in her journey of power. To ponder the reasons that refrained Benazir from having true legal authority the study is divided into the following parts: (1) Challenge and response encountered by Benazir in the first tenure of her Prime Ministership (1988-90), (2) Challenge and response encountered by Benazir in the second tenure of her Prime Ministership (1993-1996). The PPP government had made some new political strides in general, but it was persistently controlled by the army. In the first government, the brass leadership and opposition and in later government civil-military bureaucracy and opposition impaired the democratic traditions. However, amid all this Benazir succeeded to do some pragmatic politics and defying the anti-PPP mindset.

Rhetorical Factors in Perpetuation of Power in Contemporary Power Politics

Rhetorical Factors in Perpetuation of Power in Contemporary Power Politics This study explores the way in which language is manipulated and misused by political leaders of dominant powers. The use of rhetorical devices such as euphemism and dysphemism in the political speeches of president G.W Bush of the United States of America and prime minister Tony Blair of the United Kingdom when investigated through the use of CDA (Critical Discourse Analysis), has highlighted the fact that ideological manipulations are stated, performed, maintained and at times, inculcated through discursive structures, It provides information about the general emptiness and deceitfulness of political rhetoric and in this context, has discussed the increasing use of euphemism, dysphemism as binary oppositions in politics of power relevant to the modem day scenario, with special emphasis on the role of language after 9/11. The rhetorical devices have turned out to be very accurate criteria for the evaluation of the mind-set and opinions in the ideological manipulations of the discourse and are closely tied up with 'Polarization' of the intended positive self representation 'US' and negative other representation 'THEM'. The study as the first step would discuss the tools or language such as euphemism and dysphemism and their usage through binary oppositions that are later to be applied to the text collected through media, magazines, books, and the internet. These are the discursive structures applied to boost, tone down, avoid or exaggerate the issues. The impact of these speeches on Pakistan and the way its Government responded to it, is going to be discussed later on. The findings of the study can be beneficial in the development of students' and scholars' critical thinking abilities in the comprehension and production of language and also stimulate them to equip themselves with relevant devices to detect manipulative and ideologically biased language.