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Karachi: As the House of Bhutto copes with its latest violent death, there is growing hope that Benazir Bhutto's killing could help mend old strains in the virtual royal family as it seeks to extend its political dynasty and lead the country away from military rule.
Rival branches of the family have been at odds since the 1996 fatal shooting of Benazir's brother Murtaza in Karachi while she was prime minister.
Although Bhutto was remembered by some family members as the kind person who never forgot to send presents on a birthday no matter where she was and who invited them to dinner whether or not she had time to talk, others saw her as an "opportunist" and now believe that her heirs are seeking to reap undeserved benefit from a family name revered for its association with her father, executed politician Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.
Harsh critic
Fatima Bhutto, the daughter of Benazir's late brother Murtaza, is a poet and politician who became a harsh critic of her aunt. After her death, Fatima issued a public call for calm in the family.
"But in death, in death perhaps there is a moment to call for calm. To say, enough. We have had enough. We cannot, and we will not, take anymore madness," she wrote on Sunday in The News.
The main divisive figure in the family is Bhutto's husband, Asif Ali Zardari, who is accused of taking kickbacks while serving as a government minister and of involvement in Murtaza's death.
Although Bhutto's will named Zardari her successor as chairman of her Peoples Party, he passed on the mantle to their 19-year-old son, Bilawal - who has since taken the critical "Bhutto" as a middle name.
Benazir's family is one branch of the Bhutto tribe, one of the largest in the southern province of Sindh.
The patriarch of the clan is the 73-year-old Mumtaz Bhutto, Benazir's uncle, who presides like a feudal lord over serfs and servants in the family's ancestral hometown of Larkana. He said the renaming of Bilawal was a hollow ploy.
"It is an attempt to overshadow the Bhutto family and also to continue to get benefit from the name of Bhutto by the Zardaris," he said on Thursday at his palatial home where peacocks roam the grounds. "But it will not work. People will not accept this." "Let the mourning period end and people will let hell loose on this issue," said Mashoq Bhutto, elder brother of Mumtaz who was also at the house.
Still, Mumtaz Bhutto said he was seeking to unite the family after his niece's death.
In an article after Benazir's death headlined "Young Bhuttos proving wiser than their elders," The News wrote that the Bhutto offspring drew closer through their shared mourning in Larkana, where Benazir was laid to rest beside her slain father.
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