Benazir Bhutto
Benazir Bhutto
Benazir Bhuttowas the 11th and 13th Prime Minister of Pakistan, serving two non-consecutive terms in 1988–90 and then 1993–96. A scion of the politically powerful Bhutto family, she was the eldest daughter of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, a former prime minister who founded the centre-left Pakistan Peoples Party. She was the first woman democratically elected as head of a majority Islamic nation...
NationalityPakistani
ProfessionWorld Leader
Date of Birth21 June 1953
CityKarachi, Pakistan
CountryPakistan
I have led an unusual life. I have buried a father killed at age 50 and two brothers killed in the prime of their lives. I raised my children as a single mother when my husband was arrested and held for eight years without a conviction - a hostage to my political career.
To make peace, one must be an uncompromising leader. To make peace, one must also embody compromise.
My father always would say, "My daughter will go into politics? My daughter will become prime minister", but it's not what I wanted to do. I would say, "No, Papa, I will never go into politics." As I've said before, this is not the life I chose; it chose me ... But I accepted the responsibility and I've never wavered in my commitment.
The government I led gave ordinary people peace, security, dignity, and opportunity to progress.
I don't fear death. I remember my last meeting with my father when he told me, You know, tonight when I will be killed, my mother and my father will be waiting for me. It makes me weepy... but I don't think it can happen unless God wants it to happen because so many people have tried to kill me.
I was a very shy girl who led an insulated life; it was only when I came to Oxford, and to Harvard before that, that suddenly I saw the power of people. I didn't know such a power existed, I saw people criticising their own president; you couldn't do that in Pakistan - you'd be thrown in prison.
I was a very shy girl who led an insulated life; it was only when I came to Oxford, and to Harvard before that, that suddenly I saw the power of people. I didn't know such a power existed, I saw people criticising their own president; you couldn't do that in Pakistan - you'd be thrown in prison.
As a woman leader, I thought I brought a different kind of leadership. I was interested in women's issues, in bringing down the population growth rate... as a woman, I entered politics with an additional dimension - that of a mother.
And also I was brought up to believe that human beings are good, which is why it shocks me to the core when I see human beings behaving badly.
The political parties have unanimously rejected the one-man constitutional changes.
I found that a whole series of people opposed me simply on the grounds that I was a woman. The clerics took to the mosque saying that Pakistan had thrown itself outside the Muslim world and the Muslim umar by voting for a woman, that a woman had usurped a man's place in the Islamic society.
I'm not into smoke-filled rooms. I don't have the time for byzantine political intrigues.
Democracy is the best revenge. After Benazir Bhutto's death, her son's brief public remarks were captured on video, and they were reported in international newspapers. Bilawal Bhutto Zardari announced, "My mother always said, ' Democracy is the best revenge.
My father was the Prime Minister of Pakistan. My grandfather had been in politics, too; however, my own inclination was for a job other than politics. I wanted to be a diplomat, perhaps do some journalism - certainly not politics.