Naudero (Pakistan), Dec. 30: Benazir Bhutto’s 19-year-old son Bilawal stepped forward to wear his family’s blood-soaked mantle today, possibly becoming the world’s youngest head of a national political party.

The first-year Oxford history student, who uses his mother’s surname, succeeded her as Pakistan People’s Party chairman but the real power was left to his father Asif Ali Zardari, who will serve as co-chairman.

The party also decided to contest the January 8 national elections, prompting former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s party to call off its poll boycott. The government said the polls could be delayed by “up to four months” but the PPP, possibly with the sympathy vote in mind, refused to accept any postponement.

If the PPP wins the election, close Bhutto associate and party vice-chairman Makhdoom Amin Fahim would be Prime Minister, playing Manmohan Singh to Zardari’s Sonia Gandhi and Bilawal’s Rahul Gandhi.

The decisions were taken behind closed doors at the Bhuttos’ ancestral home in Naudero, Larkana, in Sindh province, where the slain leader’s will was read out.

Written on October 16, two days before Bhutto’s return from an eight-year exile, the will named Zardari as her political successor if anything unfortunate happened to her.

Zardari, tainted by charges of massive corruption during his wife’s rule, passed on the baton to Bilawal, who is six years short of the eligible age to stand for Parliament.

Bilawal told a news conference he would continue to study at Oxford while his father “took care” of party affairs. Once the young man was through with his studies, he would assume full control of the party.

Zardari then told reporters to direct their questions at him because his son was at a “tender age” and one question was enough for him.

Bhutto’s only son and eldest child is a political greenhorn, taekwondo specialist, horse-riding enthusiast and disappointed cricketer, more familiar with the high streets of Dubai and London than with Pakistan’s troubled electorates.

His situation parallels that of Rahul in many ways. Both lost a grandparent to political violence — Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was hanged by military ruler Zia-ul Haq and Indira Gandhi shot by her guards — prompting a parent to take up the mantle.

Each then walked into the arena himself after that parent was killed, under the tutelage of the other parent. Rahul, however, had a long wait after Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination before Sonia gave him a party post.

Bhutto had begun grooming Bilawal as her political heir early this year, registering him as a voter in Larkana through the Pakistani embassy in Dubai.

The former Prime Minister fiercely sheltered her three children from the media but Bilawal had in a rare interview in 2004 revealed a political conscience. As a 16-year-old schoolboy, he had said he felt justice and democracy were the key to solving Pakistan’s problems.

Asked if he wanted to enter politics, he said: “We will see, I don’t know. I would like to help the people of Pakistan, so I will decide when I finish my studies…. I can either enter politics, or I can enter another career that would benefit the people.”

Today, he said: “The party’s long struggle for democracy will continue with renewed vigour. My mother always said democracy is the best revenge.”

Zardari said the party was contesting the election “according to her (Bhutto’s) will and thinking”. He said the will named Fahim as the candidate for Prime Minister.

The party’s “battle is against those who are in power and not against the Pakistan army,” Zardari added. “We don’t want to pit the army against the people or to break up Pakistan. We want a stronger Pakistan.”

Zardari said the party would request the UN for an international probe — with assured UK participation — into the assassination. He rejected the government claim that Bhutto died by hitting her head on her car’s sunroof lever.

He said he had himself examined the wound along with his sister who is a doctor. “We know (the nature of) the wound.”