Challenge from Fatima

Pakistan's President Ayub Khan once frankly declared that his country wasn't ready for parliamentary democracy because it requires a "cool and phlegmatic temperament that only people living in cold climates seem to have." Accord ingly, only 80,000 "basic democrats"--out of a total population of 100 million --are allowed to vote for the President and legislature, and Ayub has jailed his most outspoken critics.

But with new elections due early next year, five weak opposition parties last week summoned up their nerve and nominated a candidate to challenge Ayub. The nod went to Fatima Jinnah, sister and collaborator of Mohammed AH Jinnah, the late father of Pakistan independence. Razor-tongued and prickly (she once snubbed visiting Eleanor Roosevelt after a fancied slight), "Miss Jinnah" enjoys such personal prestige that probably no government could silence her--and she has been increasingly critical of Ayub. But she probably represents no great threat to Pakistan's soldier-chief; a political novice and around 70 years old, "Miss Jinnah" can hardly match the stature of Ayub who, for all his stern ways, is probably the most popular figure in the nation.

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