My Struggle to be Prime Minister

  Benazir Bhutto

Benazir Bhutto was twice prime minister of the Islamic state of Pakistan. She was groomed for political office from the age of 9 by her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.

 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 criticizing their own president. You couldn't do that in Pakistan - you'd be thrown in prison. I saw the press take on the government.

I was determined to go back home and to give to my people the freedoms and the choices- the individual dignity which I saw my college mates and everyone else in the West have.

That early educational influence has profoundly affected my outlook on life.

Father assassinated

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.

But when my father was imprisoned, then assassinated, I had no other choice but to continue in the work that he had started because so many of his followers wanted me to do so.

General Zia called the first democratic elections since 1977 when he learned that I was pregnant, thinking that a pregnant woman couldn't campaign. I could, I did, and I won - so that disproved that notion.

The most exciting moment in my life was when I was sworn in as Prime Minister.

Rise to power 

I remember walking down the red carpet in the presidential palace, and I felt as though an invisible army of all those who had died fighting for freedom walked with me and it was a tremendous moment of vindication.

I also felt a tremendous sense that Pakistan had showed the way for other Muslim countries - that a woman could be elected as chief executive.

Dealing with criticism

I found that a whole series of people opposed me simply on the grounds that I was a  oman.

The clerics took to the mosque saying that Pakistan had thrown itself outside the Muslim world by voting for a woman - that a woman had usurped a man's place in the Islamic society.

 I was brought up to believe that a woman can do anything that a man can 

I found that my opponents reduced themselves to verbal abuse rather than discuss issues- the very mere fact that I was a woman seemed to drive them into a frenzy. So that was the biggest challenge.

I don't know how to deal with that.

I can deal with political differences, but how do you deal with it when someone says I don't like you because you're a woman and you've taken a man's place?

I was brought up to believe that a woman can do anything that a man can.

But there are certain things that only women can do such as carry a child and I found myself in a very strange position because each time I was pregnant my political opponents somehow thought I would be paralysed and would plot particularly against me at those points.

Another time my political opponents had me teargassed at a time I was carrying my youngest child. It was a pretty harrowing experience.

I found that the old-fashioned notion that a woman who's expecting a child has to be b dridden was absolutely wrong, a woman can do anything if she's lucky enough not to have morning sickness.

Legacy

I would like to be remembered for symbolising democracy in Pakistan and the Muslim world and for heralding a world of democracy in Pakistan.

But above all I want to be remembered for what I did for women.

My identity comes ultimately from being a woman and I felt that my life has to make a difference to the lives of other women so in terms of population control or in terms of exposing domestic violence or in terms of permitting women easy access to credit to start business of their own, I have always done my best to allow women to succeed. 

This article has been adapted from a special series on women and power from BBC World Service.