Bhutto's husband calls for UN-led inquiry

Benazir Bhutto’s husband has asked the United Nations and British Government to investigate her assassination after it was announced he would take-over joint leadership of his wife’s party together with their 19-year-old son.

Asif Ali Zardari, 51, will be co-chairman of the opposition party with his son Bilawal Zardari, extending Pakistan’s most famous political dynasty to another generation, party officials said.

The party also decided to contest upcoming elections, apparently ending the threat of a wholesale boycott by Pakistan’s political opposition as the key US-ally in its war on terror struggles to transition to full democracy after years of military rule.

The decisions were made at a closed-door meeting of the Pakistan Peoples Party central executive committee, three days after the two-time prime minister was assassinated in a suicide attack.

It catapults Bilawal, an Oxford University student with no experience in politics, to the centre of Pakistan’s tumultuous public life.

“The party’s long struggle for democracy will continue with renewed vigour,” he told a news conference.

“My mother always said democracy is the best revenge.”

Supporters chanted “Benazir, princess of heaven” and “Bilawal, move ahead. We are with you.”

Asif Ali Zardari is a key powerbroker in the party who served as environment minister in her second government.

As co-chairman he is widely expected to have hands-on leadership of the party.

He immediately announced the group’s participation in the vote, and appealed to the party of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to drop his plans to boycott the polls – planned for January 8 but anticipated by many to be delayed following the assassination.

The government has blamed an al-Qaida-linked militant for the murder but the party disputes that and has suggested elements in the ruling party could have been behind the slaying.

But Zardari appealed to the United Nations and British government to help investigate the crime.