Benazir's niece attacks Bilawal's appointment as PPP head

LONDON: Slain former Pakistan Premier Benazir Bhutto's niece has attacked her 19-year-old cousin Bilawal's appointment as the PPP Chairman, accusing those around him of perpetuating dynastic politics and trying to cash in on his mother's blood.
    
25-year-old Fatima Bhutto, the daughter of Benazir's brother Murtaza, described as 'dangerous' the idea that the party must be led by a member of the family.
    
"It's become in a sense the family business, like an antique shop, where it's just 'So and So and Sons' and then grandsons and great grandsons. It just gets handed down," she said in an interview to 'The Times' published on Saturday.
    
"The idea that it has to be a Bhutto, I think, is a dangerous one. It doesn't benefit Pakistan. It doesn't benefit a party that's supposed to be run on democratic lines and it doesn't benefit us as citizens if we think only about personalities and not about platforms."
    
At a press conference in London earlier this week, Bilawal had denied that the party had been handed to him 'like some piece of family furniture'.
    
Fatima's father had died in Karachi under mysterious circumstances 12 years ago when Benazir was Prime Minister. Since then, she and her mother had been locked in a feud with Benazir, but joined in the mourning after the assassination of the opposition leader.
   
"It was not a pleasant relationship we had at all," Fatima, also a newspaper columnist, said.