Bilawal Bhutto - The next PPP leader
A senior official of Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party (PPP) told TIME late Saturday that the slain former prime minister's 19-year-old son, Bilawal, will likely be named as her political heir and the new party leader on Sunday. PPP members are due to meet to discuss the party's future and to give Bilawal, a student at Oxford, a chance to read his mother's last will and testament.
Re: Bilawal Zardari made PPP new chairman?
This dynasty system MUST end!
With all due respect to BB, if I were a PPP worker I would have left the party immediately in protest over this.
This is not about cooling down Sindhis, it is about keeping a grip on power.... for one family!
For God sake, the boy doesn't even know what Pakistan or poverty is!
Anyway, lets wait and see.
Re: Bilawal Zardari made PPP new chairman?
Yeah, I agree that the dynasty system should be ended. But at the moment I don't think he will be making any decisions or anything.
Re: Bilawal Zardari made PPP new chairman?
Party leadership normally stays with the founders like Indian Congress leadership is still with Nehru Family. Don't behave like 'bonga' doesn't know any thing.
Re: Bilawal Zardari made PPP new chairman?
Yeah, I agree that the dynasty system should be ended. But at the moment I don't think he will be making any decisions or anything.
His father Asif Zardari will make all the decisions for him. Like BB they will keep a puppet like Fahim as official head, but the Zardari's will have taken effective control of the PPP.
Re: Bilawal Zardari made PPP new chairman?
http://img.timeinc.net/time/daily/2007/0712/Bilawal.jpg
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1699006,00.html
Bhutto Successor?
Saturday, Dec. 29, 2007 By SIMON ROBINSON/ISLAMABAD
A senior official of Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) told TIME late Saturday that the slain former prime minister’s 19-year-old son, Bilawal, will likely be named as her political heir and the new party leader on Sunday. PPP members are due to meet to discuss the party’s future and to give Bilawal, a student at Oxford, a chance to read his mother’s last will and testament. A Pakistani television news channel also carried reports that Bilawal will be made the new leader, which the channel said accorded with Benazir Bhutto’s wishes. If confirmed, the teenager will become the third leader of the 40-year-old center-left party, one of Pakistan’s most powerful. Bilawal will follow his grandfather, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who founded the PPP in 1967, led Pakistan as Prime Minister for four years in the mid 1970s and was hanged in 1979 by a military government, and Benazir, who took over from her father and was killed in a shooting and suicide bomb attack two days ago.
The quick anointment of a Bhutto to head the PPP will help rally party members devastated by the assassination of their tough but beloved leader. The party hopes to ride a wave of sympathy in parliamentary elections that are set for Jan. 8 but may yet be postponed in the face of widespread violence around the country. Rival opposition parties have called for a boycott of the polls but PPP officials say their party intends to participate. Bilawal was born in September 1988, nearly three months before his mother was elected Prime Minister for the first time. After Benazir and her children went into self-imposed exile in the late 1990s, the family split their time between London and Dubai, where Bilawal attended the Rashid School for Boys, serving as vice president of the school’s student council. In Fall 2007 he enrolled at Oxford, where both his grandfather and his mother studied. A 2004 profile of Bilawal in the respected Pakistani daily newspaper Dawn said the teenager liked target-shooting, swimming, horseback riding and squash, and regretted being away from Pakistan in part because it meant he played less cricket. His grandfather, he said, “was a very courageous man and I consider myself very lucky because I have three powerful role models that will obviously influence my career choices when I am older.”
As PPP members have begun to contemplate who should take over as party leader, a consensus has emerged that the person needs to be a Bhutto, a name that retains incredible power and vote-winning influence in secular Pakistan despite — or perhaps because of — the tragedies and controversies the family has faced. It is not the first time a young Bhutto has taken over from a dead parent. “This was also the situation when Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was murdered,” says Babar Awan, a PPP Senator and close ally of Benazir. “Benazir was a teenager, she was a student at Harvard in 1979 [when Zulfikar Ali was hanged]. It is basically the hard core of the PPP that rallies around their great hope and that they attach to the House of Bhutto.” Many people had tipped Benazir’s husband Asif Ali Zardari for the top spot, and in the unpredictable world of Pakistani politics that could still happen. An experienced politician, Zardari served as Environment Minister in his wife’s second administration. But he is also a controversial figure in Pakistan, and has spent a total of 11 years in prison on various charges including blackmail and corruption, for which he earned the nickname “Mr. 10%.” Supporters dismiss these charges, most of which have been thrown out of Pakistani courts (a few are still pending), as politically related mischief. “He’s a strong man,” says PPP Senator Awan. “All of us are controversial. Wasn’t Benazir Bhutto? Wasn’t Zulfikar Ali Bhutto? All those who don’t accept the military role in politics are controversial. The charges are 100% unfounded and fake.” Other possible runners include Benazir’s sister Sanam, though she seems incredibly reluctant to join the family firm, or Fatima Bhutto, the daughter of Zulfikar Ali’s eldest son Murtaza. Fatima, however, had split with her aunt Benazir, whom she once described as “the most dangerous woman in Pakistan.” The decision to go with Bilawal appears to have come after his father turned down the job in deference to the slain Benazir’s expressed wishes.
The senior PPP official, who requested anonymity to allow him to speak more openly, told TIME that Bilawal will head the party, and that the party’s deputy leader and longtime Benazir loyalist, Mukhdoom Amin Fahim, is likely to become the prime minister, assuming the party wins a majority in parliament. Bilawal would take over as the parliamentary leader once he finishes his studies and once he has more experience, the official said. Earlier in the day PPP Senator Awan told TIME that Bilawal was a natural future leader. “Yes, of course,” he said. “he has to be groomed and trained but that will happen.” The young Bhutto, Benazir’s only son, knows the dangers of the job he might be about to take on. Last year Benazir told a reporter that she hoped her three children would choose a different career. “My children have told me they are very worried about my safety,” she said. “I understand those fears. But they are Bhuttos and we have to face the future with courage, whatever it brings.”
—With reporting by Jumana Farouky/London and Khuda Yar Khan/Islamabad
Re: Bilawal Bhutto - The next PPP leader
The one who looks like her.
Re: Bilawal Zardari made PPP new chairman?
This dynasty system MUST end!
With all due respect to BB, if I were a PPP worker I would have left the party immediately in protest over this.
This is not about cooling down Sindhis, it is about keeping a grip on power.... for one family!
For God sake, the boy doesn't even know what Pakistan or poverty is!
Anyway, lets wait and see.
Then leave, no one is bothered about your view on the issue since you are not part of PPP anyways.
Care more about who is the next target of Musharraf who is recently in Defence to visit his sister with a security of at least 2 police men over 20 km range on every street corner. Im on spot witness. Thats called tight security not on the day of assasssination of Bhutto.
Re: Bilawal Zardari made PPP new chairman?
And now we are not slaves under this regime. I see.
the current regime is not acceptable, nor iam supporter of those who by anymean has strenghten it. Sadly, BB, despite her claims to be THREAT TO NON-DEMOCRATIC FORCES ( one of her interviews on BBC) has supported Gen. Mushraf.
if it had not been BB, then MUSH might have not got elected in the last presedential elections, i wonder y we have such short-memory.
Re: Bilawal Zardari made PPP new chairman?
Wouldnt it be nice if we dnt use such words for the person who is no more alive?
i dont know then what to say, surely i cannot say that she was a saint and never ever commited a single sin/crime, In one of my post i have already said that, I have no business with her personal life, niether i care if she was good or bad person, all i look is what kind of leaders she was and what she delivered. and iam sorry and embarassed to say thay our MOST BELOVED LEADER was corrupt, their is merely any achivenment in her carrier.
Re: Bilawal Zardari made PPP new chairman? (MERGED)
bilawal and sanam bhutto are welcome to enter politics but not as party leaders
if they enter as leaders then we can safely say even bhutto stood for tyranny and democratcy was just a cover
for gods sake, sanam has nearly cut all ties with pakistan
Re: Bilawal Zardari made PPP new chairman? (MERGED)
bilawal and sanam bhutto are welcome to enter politics but not as party leaders
if they enter as leaders then we can safely say even bhutto stood for tyranny and democratcy was just a cover
for gods sake, sanam has nearly cut all ties with pakistan
unfortunately Pakistani polotics is all about BRAND names, and a "Shaheed Bhutto" is STILL the most popular brand.
Re: Bilawal Bhutto - The next PPP leader
which one is her son?
The boy on the right of Zardari.
Re: Bilawal Zardari made PPP new chairman? (MERGED)
I hope they name a Airport or something after Benazir Bhutto
Despite the corruption charges and stuff, she was brutally murdered by terrorists
I say rename Islamabad's Airport as Benazir Bhutto International Airport
Re: Bilawal Zardari made PPP new chairman? (MERGED)
^ yeah and declare a PUBLIC holiday too. sarcasm alert
hang on, why not we do the same for HAkeem Muhammad Saeed, Guljee, LIAQUAT ALI KHAN, etc etc
Re: Bilawal Zardari made PPP new chairman? (MERGED)
ALERT: BILAWAL is declared Party CHAIRMAN.
Re: Bilawal Zardari made PPP new chairman? (MERGED)
bilawal and sanam bhutto are welcome to enter politics but not as party leaders
if they enter as leaders then we can safely say even bhutto stood for tyranny and democratcy was just a cover
for gods sake, sanam has nearly cut all ties with pakistan
is sanam in to politics?
Re: Bilawal Zardari made PPP new chairman? (MERGED)
ALERT: BILAWAL is declared Party CHAIRMAN.
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