SCION OF PAKISTANI DYNASTY OUT TO COMPLETE MOTHER’S MISSION
▶ Bilawal Bhutto Zardari seeks prime minister’s role knowing cost of that office to his family
His mother was assassinated on the campaign trail and his grandfather was executed by a military dictator, but that has not prevented Bilawal Bhutto Zardari from seeking the job they both held: prime minister of Pakistan.
Oxford-educated and single, Mr Bhutto Zardari, 29, is campaigning himself for the first time, traversing the sprawling plains of his native Sindh province to try to revive the fortunes of his struggling, left-of-centre Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) ahead of a July 25 general election.
He was still in university when his mother, prime minister Benazir Bhutto, was assassinated in 2007 as she campaigned to restore democracy after military rule. Her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, also a prime minister, was hanged after being deposed in a military coup.
“I didn’t choose this life, I didn’t actively go out and pursue it. My mother always used to say that she didn’t choose this life, it chose her. In the same way I feel like it applies to me,” Mr Bhutto Zardari said from the roof of his open-top, six-metre-high bulletproof bus.
Asked if he is afraid while campaigning, he answered: “No”.
He then pivoted to discussing a “climate of fear” in the leadup to the elections that some campaigners blame on Pakistan’s powerful military.
In one of the first interviews since being named the PPP’s prime ministerial candidate, he also criticised fellow University of Oxford graduate and opposition leader Imran Khan – a potential coalition partner.
Flanked by supporters on either side of the single-lane motorway, Mr Bhutto Zardari was showered with rose petals as he waved to thousands of people who waited to catch a glimpse of the youngest member of a political dynasty.
Despite the feelgood atmosphere among the crowds, election time is always tense in Pakistan, which has been ruled by the military for almost half of the 70 years since independence.
The outgoing Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government has accused the military and courts of playing a role in the removal of prime minister Nawaz Sharif last year and helping Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party. Mr Khan, a former cricket captain of Pakistan, denies the accusation and calls the PML-N a corruption-ridden “mafia”.
Overshadowing all this is the fear that the election is being engineered by the “establishment”, a euphemism for Pakistan’s much-feared military and intelligence top brass, along with some senior civil servants and judges.
The military has repeatedly denied that it interferes in modern-day politics.
“I think that there is absolutely a history in Pakistan of an overactive role for our establishment and the Pakistan Peoples Party firmly believes that should not be the case,” Mr Bhutto Zardari said, when asked about the military’s involvement in politics.
“There is absolutely a feeling that certain candidates are feeling pressurised, are feeling certain political parties are being supported in ways that they shouldn’t be,” he said. “I believe everyone should believe in the people of Pakistan, trust the people of Pakistan to make their own choices.”
Mr Bhutto Zardari’s convoy started in the town of Thatta, the medieval capital of Sindh, and was later headed north to the Punjab and Khyber Pakh tunkhwa provinces, hoping to revive the vote base it lost in the 2013 polls, when it finished second.
A Gallup nationwide poll in March put his party’s popularity at 17 per cent, with Mr Khan’s PTI at 24 per cent and Mr Sharif’s PML-N at 36 per cent.
One of the party’s challenges is overcoming the image of Mr Bhutto Zardari’s father, former president Asif Ali Zardari. Some analysts and party insiders say corruption allegations against Mr Zardari could cost the party at the polls, where it will contrast with Mr Khan’s anti-corruption message.
Mr Zardari spent 11 years in jail on charges of corruption and murder, but was never convicted. He has always maintained his innocence and remains a party leader and adviser to his son.
Although Mr Bhutto Zardari is campaigning to become prime minister, many political analysts believe the PPP may at best become a power broker if no party wins a clear majority, as seems likely.
He has indicated he would be willing to join a coalition government, although he did not say whether he would prefer the PML-N or the PTI.
Mr Bhutto Zardari said his ambitions were not just about becoming prime minister, but bringing back the policies that were dear to his mother.
On the campaign trail, he often mentions her in speeches.
“We have to keep BB’s promise. We have to save Pakistan,” he says in Urdu, the national language, using the initials by which his mother was commonly known.
“There is no greater sense of fulfilment in a son’s life than to feel like he is continuing with his mother’s incomplete missions,” he said.