Bilawal Bhutto Zardari: The former prime minister’s son hoping to lead Pakistan through a deeply turbulent time

Published

2 years ago

February 7, 2024

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We’re weaving through the streets of a very smoggy Karachi with Bilawal Bhutto Zardari.

The 35-year-old son of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto is hoping to lead Pakistan through a deeply turbulent time.

Today he’s on a double-decker container bus for the first time in this race, in a very last-minute push in the commercial capital to drum up support before Pakistanis head to the polls tomorrow.

His team enthusiastically tells us we’re at the beginning of a 12-hour journey.

Most of that will be spent slowly creeping through unimaginably narrow streets and navigating low-hanging electricity cables, as supporters throw rose petals from the rooftops onto the top of the bus where we spent a lot of time crouching down.

I spot one of Mr Bhutto Zardari’s team incongruously wearing a rubber marigold glove. I soon realise he’s using it to lift every cable that looks like it might hit us.

Politics in Pakistan is a risky business.

It’s a chaotic and colourful journey, with supporters of his Pakistan People’s Party turning out in large numbers to see him.

But the candidates this year have been strikingly less visible than in previous years. One, the frontrunner, has been totally absent in fact – banned from running.

Read more – Pakistan’s election explained:
A prisoner, a kingmaker and an unexpected return

A cycle of vengeance, jailings and military influence

Imran Khan, the cricketer turned politician, was recently jailed for 34 years, charged with corruption, leaking state secrets and an “un-Islamic” marriage.

He denies all of the charges and claims they’re politically motivated.

Many of his PTI party members have also been locked up, unable to stand. They claim the election is rigged, that the military is meddling in the result and intimidating candidates.

And their anger comes against a backdrop of a spiralling economy and rising terror threats.

“I think that to an outsider, it may look shocking,” Mr Bhutto Zardari tells me. “But unfortunately, this is nothing new for Pakistani politics.

“What I am campaigning on is to try and bring a change to what I think has led to a lot of the younger generation of Pakistanis… disenchanted by the status quo, with the war that Pakistani politics has been running.”

He’s vowing to end the “politics of hate.” But many of Khan’s supporters think the cycle of vengeance runs right through this election.

Mr Bhuttto Zardari thinks Khan has contributed to that cycle, though. He tells me: “When he was in power, Imran Khan rather relished having his political opposition of all stripes in prison quite actively… not just his political opponents, but his political opponents’ daughters, his political opponents’ sisters.”

The wide consensus is that the military is pulling the strings this election – that they want Nawaz Sharif to be prime minister and will do whatever it takes to get him there.

It is ironic given the three-time former prime minister, who himself spent time behind bars, was a thorn in the military’s side for so long.

But the pendulum swings fast here and he’s apparently considered to be their safest option for steadying the ship.

Likely kingmaker faces enormous task

You can’t assume anything in this mercurial political landscape, though.

There’s talk that PTI candidates, now forced to run as independents, could do very well at the polls, fuelled by frustration and determination.

If Pakistan ends up with a leader lacking popular support and who can’t improve the lives of ordinary people quickly, there is a fairly high risk of social unrest.

Any suspicion of overt rigging, which independent observers have raised concerns about, could lead to a lot of volatility.

For his part, Mr Bhutto Zardari wants to be a changemaker. He’s got a much better shot at being a kingmaker, possibly as a coalition partner.

But whoever does win, has a big in-tray to tackle – a weak economy and a rising terror threat.

World

Israel’s PM tries to get on front foot in propaganda war he knows he is losing

Published

2 hours ago

August 11, 2025

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Israel's PM tries to get on front foot in propaganda war he knows he is losing

Israel’s prime minister added more detail to his deeply controversial plans for military escalation in Gaza at a news conference with foreign media yesterday – despite the condemnation of the UN Security Council, which met in an emergency session and urged him to rethink.

Benjamin Netanyahu spoke of a “fairly short timetable” to establish designated “safe zones” for the one million or so set to be displaced from Gaza City.

He also vowed to seize and dismantle Hamas’s final strongholds there – in the central refugee camps, and in al Mawasi, along Gaza’s southwestern coast.

This, per Netanyahu, is the only way to destroy the terror group, which he claimed “subjugates Gazans, steals their food and shoots them when they try to move to safety”.

Al Mawasi is already home to a significant displaced population, most of whom live in tents cramped up against the Mediterranean Sea, in what is already a designated humanitarian zone.

If members of Hamas live among them, rooting them out will be hugely complicated and will involve significant civilian casualties. If the residents of Gaza City can’t evacuate south to al Mawasi, where will they go?

Netanyahu’s plan is to set up more aid distribution sites through the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) and to flood Gaza with food.

He claimed his policy was not one of forced starvation – describing particular photos of starving babies as “fake news”, and accusing the media of painting a false picture.

“The only ones who are being deliberately starved in Gaza are our hostages,” the prime minister claimed.

I asked Netanyahu how he would go about preventing the kinds of daily killings taking place at aid distribution points in the months since GHF has been operating.

Doctors Without Borders has described these incidents as deliberately orchestrated.

The prime minister said increasing the amount of aid heading into the Strip was the answer.

“And by the way, a lot of the firing was done by Hamas seeking to have a response by our forces,” he added. “And very often they didn’t, they held back. They stayed their own fire even though their own lives were on the line.”

This was Israel’s prime minister trying to get on the front foot in a propaganda war he acknowledged he was losing. He was loath to admit the presence of famine in Gaza.

It took two questions before he acknowledged there was “deprivation”, even if he would not be drawn on whether his 11-week total blockade of the strip earlier this year had played any role.

He recognises that the appalled response of the international community to the human cost of this war, and the accusations of war crimes and genocide which Israel so vehemently rejects, are a terrible look.

This was his attempt to reclaim the narrative.

World

Defiant Netanyahu sets out plan for military escalation in Gaza – and describes photographs of starving babies as ‘fake news’

Published

8 hours ago

August 10, 2025