Bhutto's surprise will offers guidance to her party

[babylonsister]

Bhutto's surprise will offers guidance to her party
By Saeed Shah | McClatchy Newspapers

* Posted on Saturday, December 29, 2007



NAUDERO, Pakistan — Benazir Bhutto left a last will and testament that maps out the future for her political party and who should lead it in her absence, her husband Asif Zardari disclosed on Saturday.

The document will be presented to her Pakistan People's Party on Sunday. It's expected to include her preference for who should lead the party in her absence. Zardari himself would be a highly controversial contender. Their son Bilawal would win a huge amount of goodwill, but is still a teenager, and Zardari appeared to rule him out on Saturday.

"He's too young. He's 19 years old," Zardari said.

Zardari said he opened the letter himself only on Saturday. Its contents will be read to an emergency meeting of the party on Sunday by Bilawal, a student at Britain's prestigious Oxford University, where his mother also studied.

"She left a message for the party and she left a will," Zardari said, in between meeting mourners who came by the hundreds to Benazir Bhutto's family home here in the village of Naudero. "This {document} is about politics. What we should do and how we should go about things."

Asked whether he wanted to lead the party, he didn't dismiss it.

"Lets see.... It depends on the party and it depends on the will."

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http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/23920.html

[tekisui]

1. Brave kid.

[magellan]

2. Her wishes will go a long way

...to rallying supporters around a new party leader, whoever it is. I hope this helps move them forward productively again. The people of Pakistan deserve it.

[AnnieBW]

3. Of course she left a will

She realized that by going back to Pakistan she was making herself a target. Obviously she thought so, or she wouldn't have left e-mails with Wolfcub to be read in the event of her death.

I'm betting that she'll pass the mantle to one of her nephews, since they're older than her children. Her husband, who would have been the obvious choice, had served time in prison for corruption. Trumped up or not, that would probably have ruined his chances for rallying the people behind him.