On the anniversary of that terrible afternoon of December 27 in Pakistan, when one minute Benazir Bhutto, 54, was waving to crowds after an election rally and the next she was lying slumped on the floor of her vehicle, her widower and children went to give blood, as they vow to do every year. At the family home in Dubai, where she lived in exile, Benazir’s bedroom is locked. On the bedside table sits the manuscript of a book she finished writing a day before she was killed. “I sleep in the next room, because the children and I don’t want to lose her scent,” says her widower, Asif Ali Zardari. On that fateful day in 2007, he and the children were in Dubai when they got a phone call saying Benazir was hurt. Zardari bitterly regrets that his wife refused to let him do the campaigning after she narrowly avoided a bombing in October. “I told her to bunker down after that and I’d take over. But she didn’t want anything to happen to me.”
That Zardari, 53, is now PakistanÂ’s president is a remarkable turnaround, even by the standards of South AsiaÂ’s dynastic politics. For years he was the countryÂ’s most despised man, known as Mr 10% for his alleged corrupt activities while his wife was prime minister; he spent 11 years in jail, though he was never convicted. Later, his refusal to allow a postmortem, and the sidelining of some of those closest to Bhutto, even led to wild speculation that he was involved in her death.
Many of Benazir’s colleagues were shocked by her will, which named their 20-year-old son, Bilawal, her political heir, with Zardari as joint leader of her Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) until Bilawal is ready to take over. Since its reading, Zardari, who keeps the handwritten will framed on the wall, has proved to be a remarkably skilled politician. “I had a great teacher,” he smiles ruefully. “Why would she leave it to me if she didn’t think I was fit enough?”
It is an unenviable legacy. When Benazir was killed she was still building a mausoleum for her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who founded the PPP and was executed. Now her body lies there, alongside her brothers, both of whom were murdered. “I know I’m in danger. I can feel it,” says Zardari. “One father, two brothers, thousands killed and imprisoned; that’s what PPP’s about. Whoever killed her wants to kill me.”
And yet Zardari’s government has launched no inquiry, insisting that only the UN has the capacity to investigate. “The problem is larger than anyone thinks,” he says. Citing Bhutto’s own words — “Democracy is the best revenge” — he adds: “I don’t want nine people strung up to avenge her death. It’s the whole system. Only when we’re Singapore and prospering will she be avenged.”
That moment seems far off. Pakistan is almost bankrupt. The country is so plagued by terrorism that it vies with Iraq for the largest number of suicide bombings. With so many problems, Zardari admits he finds it hard to be a single father to teenagers he barely knows. “I have to get to know my children again,” he says. “I find their pain over their mother the hardest thing.”
Their eldest son, Bilawal, is now in his second year at Oxford, where he lives amid tight security. Bakhtawar, the eldest daughter, started at Edinburgh University in September. Both were toddlers when Zardari first went to jail. He was in prison when their daughter, Asifa, now 15, was born. She remains in school in Dubai. Bakhtawar, a talented rap singer, wrote a song about her mother, but Zardari can’t bear to listen to it. Nor has he read Bhutto’s book. “I’m too weak. We mourn her as long as I’m alive,” he says.
Zardari has little time for his own grief. “I need hibernation for at least three years, and don’t have the luxury to do that. But Benazir is all around. I dream about her and wake expecting her to come in. But I don’t think she’d be unhappy. I think she’s looking at us now, saying, ‘Tell me, Asif, now do you think it’s easy?’ ”