Bilawal to launch political career

Islamabad: Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zarari will formally launch his political career on December 27, the day his mother Benazir Bhutto was assassinated five years ago, a federal minister said Wednesday.

Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Moula Bukhsh Chandio said the 24-year old PPP chairman would address a public rally on the day in Larkana, the home district of the Bhutto family in Sindh province.

He said hundreds of thousands of PPP workers would converge on Larkana to pay tribute to their martyred leader Benazir Bhutto, killed in a bomb-and-gun attack in Rawalpindi near Islamabad while leaving the venue of a public meeting addressed by her.

The minister said PPP believes in democracy and its leaders had sacrificed their lives for it, vowing that the party would win the forthcoming general elections on the basis of its performance during its five-year term ending by mid-March.

Born in Karachi in September 1988, Bilawal is the only son of President Asif Ali Zardari and Benazir Bhutto. He has two sisters, – Bakhtawar, 22, and Asifa, 19.

Benazir’s political will had declared Asif Ali Zardari as her successor for the party leadership. However Zardari favoured Bilawal to represent Bhuttos legacy and he was appointed chairman of PPP on December 30, 2007. Zardari also announced then Bilawal’s name change from ‘Bilawal Zardari’ to ‘Bilawal Bhutto Zardari’.

Zardari became co-chairman to run the party, while Bilawal completed his education at Oxford and returned to Pakistan in 2011 . After grooming over the past one year, Bilawal is now set to plunge into the mainstream of national politics.