February 9, 2013
The mansion is located on 14 acres of land near Lahore and is outfitted with a helipad, pools, bombproof walls and vast lawns that can accommodate 10,000 people for election rallies. Political opponents claim the house is proof that the Bhutto dynasty has lost touch with ordinary people.
February 9, 2013
The mansion is located on 14 acres of land near Lahore and is outfitted with a helipad, pools, bombproof walls and vast lawns that can accommodate 10,000 people for election rallies. Political opponents claim the house is proof that the Bhutto dynasty has lost touch with ordinary people.
The builders are still working on a multi-million dollar home for Benazir Bhutto’s son and heir but it has already sparked an angry wave of accusations that the young leader is out of touch with his country’s impoverished population.
Set in 14 acres of land on the edge of Lahore, the bungalow will have everything an aspiring Pakistani leader needs: a helipad, bombproof walls and vast lawns that can accommodate 10,000 people for giant election rallies.
Opponents have seized on its cost, rumored to be 5billion rupees ($50m), saying it represents the worst excesses of the country’s political elite.
Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, who at 24 is still too young to stand in parliamentary elections expected in May, is due to visit the site of the unfinished house on Saturday with his father, President Asif Ali Zardari, for an inauguration ceremony.
It has been lampooned variously as a retirement home for Zardari or the ultimate bachelor pad for his son, equipped with swimming pools and fitted out by international designers.
Imran Khan, the former cricketer who has put tackling corruption at the heart of his campaign to become prime minister, said the lavish mansion typified the old-style politics that he was trying to end.
“It shows they have complete contempt for the people of Pakistan,” he said. “They don’t care what anyone thinks even with elections soon.
“The main parties are both the same. They will throw money around to buy votes, buying up media advertising, and think their behavior does not matter.”
Bilawal House is expected to be completed next month and has been built with reinforced, bomb-proof concrete. It will include offices for party workers as well as at least six bedrooms, acting as what one political insider described as a “hub” for the elections.
Bilawal was named as co-chairman of the Pakistan People’s Party along with his father when Bhutto was assassinated in a suicide attack in 2007.
He has moved into the spotlight in the past year and is considered by many to be a more reliable vote winner than his father, who was only able to return from exile with his wife when corruption investigations were dropped as part of a general amnesty.
Others within the party believe the lack of time he has spent in Pakistan and his hesitant Urdu underscore the way the Bhutto dynasty has lost touch with ordinary people.
The new house – in a country considered so poor that it is in line for more than a billion pounds of British aid, yet where two thirds of MPs pay no income tax – will only add to the criticism of a political elite that is growing richer while the rest of the country struggles with power cuts, rampant inflation and unemployment.
Naveed Chaudhry, a senior PPP leader in Lahore, said details of the house had been exaggerated by political opponents. He added that construction costs were no more than $5m.
“The land is not as expensive as people think and it really is no different to what the president has in Islamabad or Karachi,” he said, adding that all the costs were borne by Zardari.
Courtesy: Daily Telegraph
