Bhutto successor may be named Sunday

By Muhammad Najeeb, IANS

Islamabad : Slain former prime minister Benazir Bhutto’s chosen successor and the political programme for her Pakistan People’s Party may be announced in a “will” to be read out by her son Bilawal Sunday evening, senior party officials and her husband said Saturday.


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The message that she wrote for the people of Pakistan will be read out by 19-year-old Bilawal, Jehangir Badr, a PPP leader told IANS.

Bhutto, who probably had some premonition of impending events, had penned a message after the Oct 18 Karachi bombing that killed 139 people. She had made a narrow escape then, but after that she wrote the message and said that it should be opened and read in case of her death.

Badr said that the party has decided that Bilawal will read this message after the prayer meeting at her ancestral home in Larkana.

He said he was not aware of the contents of the letter but Bhutto had said at several party meetings that she had written a letter that should only be read in the case of her death.

Meanwhile, Bhutto’s husband Asif Zardari told British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) radio in an interview that the letter or “will” to be read out by Bilawal contained specific instructions on the PPP’s future programme.

When asked if Bhutto had named a successor to take on the mantle of PPP leader, Zardari said the instructions would clear up all issues, including that of succession.

Bhutto, who was killed after her rally in Rawalpindi Thursday, had said that there were some elements in the government and Pakistan’s politics who were engineering murderous attacks on her.

She had publicly stated that she had identified these elements and written to President Pervez Musharraf saying these people should be held responsible if she was murdered.

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