The scion speaks: Bilawal Bhutto setting sights on 2018 elections

Says he wants to work with the grass roots.

In an interview with the BBC published on Tuesday, Pakistan Peoples Party patron in chief Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said that he wishes to take on more responsibility in his party.

“There is the opportunity for me to start taking on more responsibility. But I will be focused more on party politics and working with every level of the party - I don’t want to parachute myself in from the top. I want to work with the grassroots, with every level of the party across the country and my aim is the 2018 election.”

When asked if he will contest in the by-elections, he said that it’s a discussion ongoing in party.

Bilawal responded to a question about his entry into politics by saying, “Politics is a dirty and dangerous game. I’ve seen my mother bury her brothers; I have seen her living in exile raising her three children practically as a single mom…I challenge you to find one 19 to 25-year- old who will say ‘I want to do this’.”

“I never saw myself as being in politics here,” he said, adding that he didn’t have the ambitions. “Now that I’m and see the state of my country, I want to play any role I can.”

Bilawal said he thought the assassination of his mother, former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, would “wake the country up”, but that politicians had wasted the consensus built by his family.

As the government contemplates a decision on the security situation in Pakistan, Bilawal said, “Dialogue is always an option but we have to have a position of strength,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 29^th, 2014.