‘Whoever killed Benazir wants to kill me’

03 September 2008

Christina Lamb interviews the husband of the late Benazir Bhutto, Asif Ali Zardari, who hopes to be named President of Pakistan this Saturday

Looking at the lifesize photograph of her waving at the crowds before leaving her last rally, he says; ‘I told her to bunker down after the first assassination attempt in Karachi and I would take over, she said no, she didn’t want anything to happen to me. But it would have been better if she’d survived, she would have been much better at all this.’

Few would disagree. Western diplomats find it hard to conceal their horror at the prospect of Zardari running a country increasingly regarded as the world’s most dangerous and the new base for al-Qa’eda. Plagued by chronic back problems as the result of a polo injury, his fitness for having his finger on the button of the world’s first Islamic bomb was not helped by the emergence in the Financial Times last week of legal documents describing him as crippled by psychiatric problems. As recently as March 2007, a psychiatrist had attested to him suffering depression, dementia and an inability to concentrate. Others say these were just a device to get off another corruption case and that Zardari has had long-held ambitions to emerge from his wife’s shadow. Friends say he spent years reading and preparing while in jail then the last two years in New York undergoing treatment for heart problems.

One advantage of being President is immunity to further investigations. Unlike the Prime Minister, the President does not have to disclose his assets. This is convenient, as Swiss authorities last month released millions of dollars of his assets which had been frozen in 1997 after the Pakistan authorities claimed it was money received from kickbacks on government contracts that he was laundering in Swiss banks. Zardari claims the amount is nowhere near the $60 million cited by Swiss officials and that he would give $30 million to anyone who could prove it was $60 million.

Whatever his motive in seeking more power, the heavily armed guards in black T-shirts who surround Zardari everywhere he goes attest to the risk he is taking. Not only was Bhutto assassinated, but also her two brothers. Her father, who founded the PPP, was executed.

‘I know I’m in danger — I can feel it,’ says Zardari. ‘Whoever killed her wants to kill me. But I won’t be scared or bullied. If that was the kind of person I was she wouldn’t have left it to me — she’d put in too much.’