Bilawal Bhutto Zardari faces tough challenges
Family charisma could help assassinated prime minister's party in next election, analysts say
Bilawal Bhutto Zardari's entry into Pakistan's political arena continues south Asia's tradition of dynastic politics, but analysts say he faces tough challenges to turn his famous name into palpable success.
His mother, Benazir Bhutto, and maternal grandfather, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, were both prime ministers, and in his first major public speech on Thursday Bilawal painted himself as the true heir to the dynasty that has dominated Pakistani democracy for more than 40 years.
"Bhutto is an emotion, a love," he told 200,000 supporters at the family mausoleum in the southern province of Sindh as he marked the fifth anniversary of his mother's assassination and launched his own political career. "Every challenge is soaked in blood, but you will be the loser," he said in a message to what he called anti-democratic forces. "However many Bhuttos you kill, more Bhuttos will emerge from every house."
Zulfikar, who led Pakistan from 1971 until he was deposed in a coup in 1977, was hanged in 1979 over the murder of a political opponent.
Benazir was killed in a gun and suicide attack after an election rally in 2007.
For the Pakistan People's Party (PPP), founded by Zulfikar and now at the head of the ruling coalition, the dead Bhuttos are martyrs. The party's rhetoric makes much of their struggle to bring democracy in the face of an entrenched and oppressive "establishment".
A general election is expected in the spring and after almost five years of PPP-led government, ordinary Pakistanis face a host of miseries on a daily basis: gas shortages, incessant power cuts, inflation, pervasive corruption and the ever-present threat of terror attacks.