Inheriting a bloody legacy

At the age of 19, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has been thrust into front line politics in Pakistan after the assassination of his mother Benazir on December 27.

As the new chairman of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP), the first-year Oxford University undergraduate — whose first language is English — will play a prominent role in a country he barely knows, alongside a father he has not seen properly for years.

Described by friends as studious and devoted to his mother, the teenager is a novice to public life — he has yet to debate in the Oxford Union and would have to squeeze in the elections before he returns to the UK for his second term at university.

Bilawal — the name means “one without equal'' — was born in September 1988, three months before his mother was elected prime minister for the first time.

She went into self-imposed exile in April 1999, taking Bilawal and his two younger sisters with her, and divided their time between London and Dubai.

Throughout most of this time, his father Asif Ali Zardari was in jail in Pakistan on blackmail and corruption charges.

As a teenager, Bilawal said: “I have gone through lots of things and he wasn't there. At the time when we needed him, he was taken away. We were denied a normal life.''

Bilawal won a place at Christchurch College in Oxford, also attended by his grandfather, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, who founded the PPP.

His mother was at Lady Margaret Hall and became president of the Oxford Union.

Victoria Schofield, a close friend of Benazir Bhutto who has known Bilawal since he was a baby, said she was convinced he would rise the challenge presented him.

“He was devoted to his mother, there is no doubt about that. He is not a flash spoilt brat by any means.

“He will be so emotionally connected to what his mother has suggested that there will be no question of him doing anything different.''

Despite the expectation upon his shoulders, he is determined to carry on with his life at Oxford.

“It was his mother's greatest joy that he got to Oxford,'' said Schofield, adding that Benazir would expect him to return to his studies.

However, that university life could well change, with increased security in the wake of his mother's death.

Bilawal will also have to learn quickly about his homeland, Schofield said. “He has barely been to Pakistan, he would have been 11 when he left,'' she said.

“He does speak Urdu and Arabic but English is his first language, that was what was spoken in the home.

“He has also got to work on a new relationship with his father — he didn't really knew his father as a boy.''