Bilawal Bhutto is no Rahul Gandhi

Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, who made his first major political speech on Thursday in Garhi Khuda Buksh on his mother’s fifth death anniversary, appears a much more eager politician than Rahul Gandhi, the scion of Indian Gandhi family.
According to an article carried by INDIA REALTIME, both men have a lot in common. Bilawal is the son of slain former prime minister Benazir Bhutto. Gandhi’s father, former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, also was assassinated.
“Both men’s parties rely heavily on the widespread recognition of the families’ names to lure voters come election time. Mr Bhutto Zardari’s grandfather was Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, another former prime minister who was hanged by a military dictatorship in 1979. Mr Gandhi’s great-grandfather, Jawaharlal Nehru, was independent India’s first prime minister and his grandmother, Indira Gandhi, was Indian prime minister in the 1970s and early 1980s,” the report said.
But there’s also much that separates the two standard-bearers of these political dynasties.
Bilawal speech on the fifth anniversary of his mother’s assassination was fiery.
He took on the judiciary – which has been at loggerheads with his father, President Asif Ali Zardari over several issues.
Bilawal vowed to stand up to those that wanted to take power from elected leaders. He is only 24, “which means he’s a year too young to contest general elections that must take place by May”, the report said.
But Farhatullah Babar, spokesman for the president, said he would play a lead on-the-ground role in the polls.
“The PPP owes its strength to the Bhutto name and the Bhutto philosophy,” Babar told INDIA REALTIME.
“Gandhi, by contrast, did not enter politics until 2004, when, aged in his mid-30s, he stood for his mother’s former seat in Uttar Pradesh. He won but did not take a major leadership role in the Congress party until becoming general secretary in 2007,” the paper said.
He has appeared a reluctant politician and kept largely out of the limelight, generally refusing media interviews and making dry speeches.
“Despite calls from senior Congress politicians, he has yet to take a formal cabinet position though, like Mr Bhutto Zardari, he is focusing on party building and state elections,” the article said.
Mohammad Waseem, a political studies professor at Lahore University of Management Sciences, expects Bilawal will take a hands-on role from now on.
“The PPP has faced pressure from the Supreme Court this year to remove Zardari, the president, as its co-chairman. Letting the son play a larger role in the party could help make this problem go away,” Waseem told the paper.
Ayaz Amir, a lawmaker with the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, the main opposition party, acknowledged the central role Bilawal would play in the future.
“It’s like the Gandhis in India,” he said. “The leadership is associated with them.” As to whether Bilawal’s time as an undergraduate at Oxford University, where he was captured in photographs partying with women, would hurt his electoral chances in Pakistan, Amir demurred.
“A boy having fun in England plays out well. It doesn’t hurt anyone,” he said. “The Islamists won’t vote for the PPP anyway,” he told INDIA REALTIME.