Cracks in the Bhutto dynasty
Fri, January 18 2008
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Fatima Bhutto |
In her interview to the London Times, Fatima launched a blistering attack on her cousin Bilawal’s appointment, accusing those around him of perpetuating dynastic politics and trying to cash in on his mother’s blood.
Fatima’s remarks are unlikely to dent Bilawal’s support, but they reflect the concerns of many about his party’s democratic credentials ahead of parliamentary elections on February 18.
And while she says her doors are “always open” to Bilawal and his sisters, her criticism is almost certain to dash hopes of a family reunion and carry the epic feud into the next generation.
“We were there for those three days of mourning,” she said. “So it’s up to them now,” Fatima said.
When Fatima Bhutto heard that her estranged aunt had been assassinated, she put aside decades of family feuding to mourn with her relatives at the ancestral home in Larkana.
Three days later, when Benazir Bhutto’s 19-year-old son, Bilawal, was anointed head of the Pakistan People’s Party, Fatima maintained a respectful silence, despite whispers that she was the real Bhutto heir.
Fatima, a 25-year-old newspaper columnist, also rejected her own claim to the Bhutto legacy, calling for a new era of politics based on platforms rather than personalities.
“That’s the problem – it’s a field that’s held hostage by so few and it’s become in a sense the family business, like an antique shop, where it’s just ‘So and So and Sons’ and then grandsons and great grandsons. It just gets handed down,” she said.
“The idea that it has to be a Bhutto, I think, is a dangerous one. It doesn’t benefit Pakistan.
It doesn’t benefit a party that’s supposed to be run on democratic lines and it doesn’t benefit us as citizens if we think only about personalities and not about platforms,” Fatima said.
At a news conference in London, Bilawal denied that the party had been handed to him “like some piece of family furniture”.
The PPP says that Benazir left a will appointing her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, as the party chief and that he stepped down in favour of Bilawal, a history student at Oxford.
Bilawal added “Bhutto” to his surname and said his father would run the party until he completed his studies.
Mumtaz Bhutto, the leader of the 700,000-strong Bhutto tribe, has disputed that, saying Bilawal’s name change did not make him a “real Bhutto”.
Fatima said that neither she nor her 17-year-old brother were the rightful heirs – even though they are the offspring of the male line.
The issue, she said, was whether Bilawal was a suitable choice, given that by law he must wait another 6 years to run for Parliament – and 16 years to stand for the prime minister.
“Ultimately the party workers believe that nobody can head the party but a Bhutto, but I don’t think the workers believe that on whomever you put the Bhutto name can lead,” she said. “They seem to be a party in a hurry and they seem to be desperate to cash in on her (Benazir’s) blood.
There was a certain coterie around her that benefited richly from her government and they plan, it seems, to benefit richly from her death as well.”
The parallels between Fatima and her aunt are striking: Benazir studied at Harvard and Oxford before returning to Pakistan and taking over the PPP aged 24.
Fatima returned to Pakistan two years ago after completing a BA in Middle Eastern studies at Columbia University and an MA in South Asian government and politics at SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies) in London.
So far, she has resisted the urge to run for the Parliament, confining herself to campaigning for her mother and writing her weekly columns.
She admits, though, that politics is in her blood. “If there was an opportunity for new faces to come up and new voices to be heard and if I could be of service in some way, I wouldn’t say no,” she said. “But I’m not interested in being a symbol for anyone.”
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