Family rivalries surface to tear at Benazir's legacy

· Son should not have been made party leader, says clan chief
· Feudal lord intervenes in the wake of assassination

Declan Walsh in Mirpur Bhutto
Wednesday January 2, 2008
The Guardian


Mumtaz Bhutto, head of the Bhutto tribe in Pakistan's Sindh province and former rival of Benazir Bhutto, receiving visitors at the family ancestral home at Mirpur Bhutto, six miles from Benazir Bhutto's home in Naudero. Photograph: Declan Walsh/Guardian


Mumtaz Bhutto sat back on the cool marble veranda of his sprawling country mansion in rural Sindh province. A guard brandishing a Kalashnikov stood behind him. A servant fanned the chocolate cake on the table to keep the flies at bay. He was dismayed.

The rise of Asif Zardari, Benazir Bhutto's husband, to the leadership of the Pakistan People's party, was nothing less than a disaster, said Mumtaz, the sprightly 74-year-old head of the Bhutto clan.

"Zardari is an illiterate man. He has no political background or experience. He will not be able to conduct himself as the same level as Benazir," he said with barely concealed disdain. "Most unfortunate."

Family feuds are never pretty but for the Bhuttos, Pakistan's dominant political dynasty, they are played out with the same intensity that characterises the rest of the family's Greek tragedy-style history.

Continued . . .