Bhutto's son named as heir to political party
Benazir Bhutto's 19-year-old son Bilawal has been chosen to take over her Pakistan People's Party, after her assassination on Thursday.
He will become president in a ceremonial capacity while he finishes his studies at Oxford University.
Bilawal told journalists at the Bhutto family home: "My mother always said democracy is the best revenge".
Ms Bhutto's widower, Asif Ali Zardari, who will run the party day-to-day, said it would contest January elections.
This is, as Cernig observes, oligarchy over democracy, and very much in keeping with the way politics in Pakistan works. Truly democratic parties don't remain family fiefdoms to be passed from one generation to the next as the PPP has for the last forty years.
In the larger picture, while Benazir Bhutto may not have been the best choice for a democratic Pakistan, she was an important figurehead for the democracy movement, and with her death, that movement suffers. As Eric Margolis notes, there really isn't anyone capable of reaching the masses as she could.
It will be impossible to fill Bhutto's shoes. Her adoring supporters saw her as a combination of saint, martyr and redeemer.
The martyr part became reality on Thursday. It is, I think, one of the reasons the PPP is willing to go with a dynastic succession; to play on that sympathy. It is also one of the many weaknesses of such successions. As monarchies uncountable have shown, no family consistently produces good leaders generation after generation. And if Bilawal turns out to be a good leader as well, he can always follow his mother into martyrdom.
