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Benazir sounded optimistic in e-mail to British MP

— Photo: AFP

A girl holds Benazir Bhutto’s portrait during a demonstration in Rome on Friday.

LONDON: Barely three days before her assassination, an optimistic Benazir Bhutto sent an email to a senior Conservative Party MP — a personal friend from her Oxford days — inviting him to her “inauguration” as Prime Minister in case her party won the elections.

But, deeply conscious of Pakistan’s uncertain political climate, Benazir was quick to add a note of caution saying though it was “better to be an optimist” ultimately “what man proposes…God disposes.” Alan Duncan, Shadow Business Secretary who had known Benazir since they met at Oxford University in the 1970s, said he received her email on December 24, a few hours after he had sent her a message wishing her “every success in 2008” and hoping to attend her “swearing-in.”

In her reply, reproduced in The Times, Benazir wrote: “Dear Alan, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. If the elections are not rigged, PPP will definitely win and you can fly in for the inauguration. Problem is that we still face an uphill task…Still better to be an optimist and what Man proposes and God disposes…Benazir.”

Mr. Duncan said Benazir knew there was a risk of being killed.

“We talked about it. But she said she was never going to compromise. She was the perfect person to take Pakistan from army rule back to democracy,” he said as tributes from former friends, journalists and politicians poured in.

A common theme that ran through the tributes was that Benazir had a very keen sense of her own mortality having seen her father go to the gallows, her two brothers die and survived attempts on her own life. Ginny Dougary, who interviewed her for The Times Magazine, recalled asking her whether she felt immortal [a foolish question to ask anyone, but still…] and she said: “No. I know death comes. My young brothers, I have buried….and I have been to the homes of people who have been hanged and people who were shot in the street, so, no, I don’t feel there’s anything like immortality.”

Another aspect highlighted by Benazir’s friends and acquaintances was that she was a reluctant politician, pushed into it by events, notably her father’s execution by Zia-ul-Haq’s military regime.

According to Tariq Ali, who had known her since she was a “fun-loving teenager,” Benazir always wanted to be a diplomat “but history and personal tragedy pushed [her] in the other direction”.

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