Source: Bloomberg

By Camilla Hall

Jan. 8 (Bloomberg) — Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, who took over as chairman of the Pakistan Peoples’ Party after his mother, Benazir Bhutto, was assassinated last month, said his country may fragment unless President Pervez Musharraf backs free elections.

“I fear for my country,” Zardari, 19, a first-year history student at Oxford University, said at a news conference in London today. “I fear if free and fair elections are not held, it may disintegrate.”

Parliamentary elections, which were initially scheduled for today, were delayed for six weeks after Bhutto’s assassination in the garrison town of Rawalpindi on Dec. 27. Opposition politicians including former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said Musharraf wanted the elections postponed because a wave of sympathy for Bhutto will hurt the pro-government Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid-e-Azam, which controlled the last parliament.

Bhutto, who took over the PPP’s leadership after her father, former Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was executed in 1979, named her widower as her successor in a will. Asif Ali Zardari, 51, who will be co-chairman of the PPP, nominated their son to lead the party.

Bilawal Zardari, who is too young to run for parliament, left Pakistan to continue his studies. Today, he appealed to the media to leave him alone at Oxford, saying he won’t give any interviews and may hold occasional news conferences.

Endorsed by Party

Zardari said he had been at Oxford for barely eight weeks before the death of his mother. He studies at Christchurch College. His two sisters live in Dubai.

He said the PPP endorsed his nomination as party chairman.

“Pakistan was burning and I did what I was asked to do,” he said. “I took on the position because the party needed a close association with my mother and a bloodline. My role as chairman is one into which I will step gradually and carefully.”

Zardari criticized the U.S., which supplies Musharraf’s administration with financial and military aid to fight extremists. The Pakistani president came to power in a 1999 military coup that deposed Sharif. Musharraf stepped down as army chief on Nov. 28 after pressure for him to give up the military leadership while holding the presidency.

“The problem is that dictatorships feed extremism and once the United States stops supporting dictators we can successfully tackle the extremist problem as well,” Zardari said.

Riots in Cities

Bhutto’s assassination sparked riots in Pakistan’s main cities, resulting in the deaths of as many as 58 people, as her supporters took to the streets, burning offices, shops and cars. Musharraf said the Election Commission’s decision to delay the parliamentary ballot until Feb. 18 was “appropriate” because rioting after Bhutto’s killing had destroyed election equipment.

The younger Zardari also said an investigation run by the Pakistani government has no credibility because “so much forensic evidence has already” been destroyed.

“Had she been provided with adequate protection, she would’ve been alive today,” he said. “We appreciate that Scotland Yard detectives have become involved but the family and party’s request is for an investigation sponsored by the United Nations.”

A five-member team from the London police force arrived in Pakistan last week to help the government investigate Bhutto’s assassination. Musharraf said on Jan. 2 that al-Qaeda-linked Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud had plotted Bhutto’s assassination in a gunfire-and-suicide bomb attack as she finished addressing an election rally.

Phone Call Alleged

Pakistan’s security agencies intercepted a telephone conversation between Mehsud and an aide the day after Bhutto’s killing in which they congratulated each other, according to the interior ministry.

Bhutto’s party has rejected government claims Mehsud was behind the assassination and has demanded a United Nations-led investigation. The senior Zardari said his sister, a doctor, bathed Bhutto’s body before burial and saw a bullet wound.

That contradicts a government report that Bhutto wasn’t hit by bullets or shrapnel and was killed when she hit her head on a lever for the sunroof of her vehicle following a suicide bomb blast. No autopsy was performed.

Bhutto ignored warnings about possible attacks and exposed herself by standing in the open sunroof of her car, Musharraf said.

 E-mail this article to a friend

Tags: Assassination, Benazir Bhutto, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, Elections, PPP