Naudero, Sindh: Benazir Bhutto's widower, Asif Ali Zardari, has launched a scathing attack on the country's establishment, saying a victory for his party in forthcoming elections would be his late wife's greatest legacy.
Speaking to The Daily Telegraph at the end of 40 days of mourning, Zardari did not rule himself out as a future candidate for prime minister.
Elections were delayed until February 18 after Pakistan's most charismatic politician was killed in a suicide attack that heightened international concern about the stability of nuclear-armed Pakistan.
Reports of election-rigging are already rife ahead of polls that are crucial for a weakened and increasingly unpopular president, Pervez Musharraf, who could face impeachment if voters choose a hostile parliament.
"In spite of all this we will win to show the world our commitment to democracy," said Zardari. "If there are free and fair elections we will win hands down."
Will
Bhutto's Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) named her 19-year-old son, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, as chairman and Asif Ali Zardari, 51, as co-chairman.
The decision was in accordance with her will, written just before she returned to Pakistan last October, eight years after being hounded out amid corruption allegations.
"Bilawal is at Oxford; he is studying and does not need any more stress," his father said, explaining why he has taken on the role as "prince regent".
Zardari said his party would restore democracy to Pakistan in the name of Bhutto. "She used to campaign in her father's name. It is part of our culture. It is what we call Bhuttoism".
Yesterday, the imagery of the Bhutto dynasty and its history of "martyrdom" hung heavily over Zardari as he addressed mourners gathered in Garhi Khuda Baksh to mark the end of a 40-day Muslim mourning period at his wife's ancestral village in southern Sindh province.
"If I am martyred before completing the mission of Benazir Bhutto, then I should also be buried here," he said in the family farmhouse in the neighbouring village of Naudero. "This is the fight between establishment and the people."
Behind him loomed the mausoleum that holds the remains of his wife, her father and two brothers, all killed amid political intrigue.
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Pakistan's first popularly elected prime minister, was toppled and hanged by the military in the late 1970s, but the PPP still draws on his populist appeal. Supporters refer to the village as the "village of martyrs".
