Pakistan mourns former first lady
Pakistan yesterday mourned the death of Nusrat Bhutto, former first lady and mother of assassinated Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who died in Dubai after a long illness. She was 82. She was the widow of Pakistan’s first democratically elected leader...
Pakistan yesterday mourned the death of Nusrat Bhutto, former first lady and mother of assassinated Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who died in Dubai after a long illness. She was 82.
She was the widow of Pakistan’s first democratically elected leader Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, the founder of the ruling Pakistan People’s Party, and the mother-in-law of Pakistan’s current President Asif Ali Zardari.
Born into a wealthy Iranian family that moved to Karachi, she married into what would become Pakistan’s most famous political dynasty in 1951 and became herself a powerful spiritual force within the PPP. Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has ordered a 10-day period of national mourning with yesterday being a public holiday, cancelling all his engagements. Interior Minister Rehman Malik told reporters in Dubai that her body would be flown back to Pakistan and be buried at Garhi Khuda Bakhsh, the ancestral graveyard of the Bhutto family in southern Sindh province.
She was elected a member of the Pakistani parliament several times, but her life was scarred by personal tragedy and political difficulties. She became chairman of the PPP after her husband’s death in 1979 until her daughter Benazir took over in 1984 and was twice elected Prime Minister. Ms Benazir was assassinated in a gun and suicide attack at an election campaign in late 2007.
Her widower and Ms Butto’s son-in-law, Zardari then led the PPP to election victory in February 2008.