Eleanor Mills
Interview
Sunday Times October 1999
- Benazir Bhutto seemed like an ideal PM for Pakistan
- First woman PM of Muslim country - she gave birth while in office
- She is part of a dynasty of political leaders
- She was PM twice
- She represented an optimistic future for Pakistan
- Bhutto has been accused of stealing 1 billion pounds
- and faces imprisonment, ban from holding public office and large fines
- She now rents a flat in Kensington
- She denies the accusations of corruption
- Bhutto was educated at Oxford
- She was the head of the Oxford Union
- Has a strong sense of duty and public service
- She is a high profile international woman
- She is friends with famous political and public figures
- She lives an unstable public life
- compared to the friends she has in England who are stable, successful and conventional
- She has lived a life of extremes
- Many of her family - brothers, her father have been assassinated
- this has been traumatic and terrible for her
- Very little opportunity to live a normal life
- She claims the charges against her are politically motivated
- However the source of her extraordinary wealth is unexplained and very suspicious
- While in office there were suspicions around her husbands wealth and power
- Corruption in Pakistani politics is embedded - difficult to consider her innocent
- She claims her wealth is legitimate
- She claims to be forced by pressure from her party and duty to continue to be active in politics
- Bhutto enjoys spending time with her daughters
- She says she is politics to serve
- Being a mother and domestic concerns now dominate her life
- Her friend the king of Spain has not come to her aid
- Thatcher has been a support to Bhutto
