The 19-year-old Oxford freshman, who has a black belt in Tae Kwon Do and a fondness for horse riding and cricket, is expected to return to his studies, leaving Zardari in charge as a kind of regent until Bilawal reaches 25, the minimum age for contesting elections in Pakistan. “The chairmanship of the party is often occupied by martyrs and I don’t know how long my father will be able to keep this position,” Bilawal said, in response to a reporter’s question before his father cut in requesting that all questions be addressed to him.
Zardari said Bhutto’s handwritten political will, dated Oct. 16, two days before the suicide bombings targeted a procession celebrating her homecoming to Pakistan from exile, had been endorsed by the party’s executive committee but will not be made public. Zadari said Bhutto had instructed him to take over as the party chairman, and that he had decided to add Bilawal as co-chairman.
Zardari said the party will ask the British government and the UN to conduct a probe, along the lines of the commission that investigated the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, into Bhutto’s death. “She told us who killed her,” he said. “We find the local authorities guilty.” Zardari said his wife died from bullet wounds in the head and neck and rejected government claims that she died from hitting a lever on the sunroof of her vehicle. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi today also called for linking U.S. aid to Pakistan to such an international inquiry.
Appealing for calm, Zardari condemned the ongoing army action against protesters and said “our fight is not with the Pakistan Army, it is with the rulers.” He said he was not a candidate for Prime Minister and was not seeking any office.
The choice of Bilawal was somewhat surprising but not entirely unexpected. The rank and file wanted a Bhutto to lead the party, and some party leaders had made an unsuccessful push to convince Benazir’s non-political sister Sanam to take over.
Benazir herself was only 25 and preparing for a career in diplomacy when her father, former Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was hanged on the orders of military dictator Gen. Zia-ul-Haq. At the time, many among the party leadership refused to take commands from a young, inexperienced woman and left. Many of these same people were invited back into the party by Benazir when she become Prime Minister in 1988, and Zardari’s new role may keep them in the fold.
Munizae Jahangir, a correspondent for New Delhi TV, spoke to Bhutto about her three children in an interview last July in London. “She told me she wanted them to be doctors,” said Jahangir to NEWSWEEK. “She made sure never to pressure her son and daughters into following her into politics and believed there were other, less riskier ways of serving one’s country. But politics is their heritage, and given what has happened Bilawal is the most natural choice.”
