Bhutto's son takes over party mantle, vows revenge
©AFP - Aamir Qureshi
NAUDERO, Pakistan (- Slain Pakistan opposition leader Benazir Bhutto's son took over as chairman of her party Sunday and immediately vowed to fight for democracy as revenge for her assassination.
At an emotional news conference where his father was presented as co-chair of the Pakistan People's Party, the 19-year-old Bilawal Bhutto, an Oxford University student untested in politics, said he was ready to lead.
The party said it would take part in elections on January 8 despite Bhutto's assassination in a gun and suicide bomb attack on Thursday, prompting former premier Nawaz Sharif to abandon his own plans for a boycott.
"My mother always said that democracy is the best revenge," Bilawal told the news conference at the family home in Pakistan's deep south that was punctuated by cheers from supporters.
©AFP - Pedro Ugarte
"The party's long and historic struggle for democracy will continue with a new vigour," said the teenager, wearing a sombre expression as he took over the mantle of a party whose previous leaders, his mother and grandfather, came to violent ends.
His father, Bhutto's husband Asif Ali Zardari, demanded a United Nations probe into her assassination along the lines of the world body's probe of the killing of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri.
"We demand a Hariri commission-style investigation," Zardari told reporters. "We are writing to the United Nations for an international probe into her martyrdom."
With her party openly ridiculing government assertions that she had died by hitting her car sunroof on Thursday -- and not from bullet or shrapnel wounds in the attack -- Zardari said he had denied permission for an autopsy.
He said he had lived in Pakistan "long enough to know" how it would have been handled.
©AFP - Aamir Qureshi
The government says Al-Qaeda militants are responsible for Bhutto's death at an election rally less than two weeks before the scheduled vote.
But Bhutto's supporters have accused the government of President Pervez Musharraf of involvement in the attack.
Zardari, who spent more than eight years in jail on corruption charges before he was freed in 2004, defied expectations that the party would call for the upcoming elections to be delayed.
The polls, the first in more than five years, are seen as a key step in completing the nation's transition to a civilian-led democracy after almost a decade of military rule.
"We have decided to go for elections," Zardari said.
©AFP - Saeed Khan
"We are grateful to Nawaz Sharif for announcing his boycott of the election but we appeal to him to end the boycott and take part."
Minutes later, spokesmen for Sharif and his Pakistan Muslim League-N party said they would take part in the vote, saying the decision was taken after Zardari asked him to participate when they met on Saturday.
But it was not immediately clear if the vote would go ahead as scheduled. Pakistan's election commission was to hold an emergency meeting on Monday.
A spokesman for Pakistan's former ruling party, which backs Musharraf, said earlier in the day that a delay of up to 12 weeks was "realistic".
Zardari appealed for calm and peace in the country, following a wave of violence sparked by Bhutto's death that left at least 38 people dead and property worth tens of millions of dollars damaged.
©AFP - Saeed Khan
A senior party official at the news conference said that Bhutto in her will had named Zardari as her successor, but that her husband had passed on the post as party chairman to his son.
Before the meeting, a crowd of supporters outside the house chanted slogans against the Pakistani president, including "Curse on Musharraf, Musharraf is a killer!"
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