Word: abida
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...Abida Hussain has a lot of explaining to do as she campaigns for a parliamentary seat in Pakistan. The 61-year-old, two-time member of the National Assembly is a veteran of the country's rough-and-tumble politics: she has switched political parties four times. That has helped earn her the derogatory epithet lota, the round-bottomed (and thus wobbly) pitchers used in Pakistani bathrooms. But this time around, Hussain has a powerful ally: the ghost of Benazir Bhutto, the popular former Prime Minister who was assassinated on December...
...when Benazir Bhutto called her back into the fold, inviting her to London where she ran the party from exile. "Benazir personally asked me to return," Hussain told the crowd. Her personal herald, a short man in thick glasses with a powerful voice shouted, "Long live Bhutto!" "Long live Abida!" the crowd roared back...
...teacher at Hussain's last rally for the day. "But the day after the elections they disappear." Khaliq says he has given up on voting for individual candidates. He will choose Hussain not because of what she has promised, but because she represents Bhutto. "Benazir is the dream, and Abida will bring us there...
...coup backed by Pakistan's new vice chief of army staff, General Ashfaq Kyani, Musharraf's heir apparent. Rumors are commonplace in Pakistani politics, and Kyani is a loyalist. Still, for many Pakistanis--even those fed up with military dictators--the rumors brought a glimmer of hope. Abida Hussain, a former ambassador to the U.S., got a phone call about a possible coup while being interviewed by TIME. "If only," she responded. "If there were a coup, it would be the best day for Pakistan." That a diplomat should wish for another military coup in her own country...
Finally, especially after Sept. 11, tightened security and immigration policies have made some international students wary of leaving the country. According to Abida, international students receive a year-long “practical training” visa to gain job experience after graduation, but cannot return if they leave the U.S. “If I leave the country, I can only go back to Tunisia,” she says. And even for students still in college, re-entry to the U.S. is no sure thing. At the beginning of this academic year, a few Harvard students were temporarily...