Bilawal needs a Bairam Khan.

In a few hours from now the 8th death anniversary of Benazir is being observed by the PPP. Exactly 8 years ago on this day she was cut down by an assassin’s bullet precisely at the same venue where in 1951 the first prime minister of Pakistan Liaqat Ali Khan had suffered a similar fate. Neither his nor her killers could be traced out. What a pity that her spouse became president soon after her killing and remained tenant of the Presidency for full five years. All intelligence and police investigation agencies were subordinate to him and yet no clue could be found out as to who masterminded her assassination and who actually carried it out?
A lot has fallen on the young and inexperienced shoulders of Bilawal. He finds himself among the coterie of those PPP leaders who were instrumental in bringing a bad name to it through their rampant corruption. Not that his father was unaware of it. Some people allege it was done with his connivance. Unless he gets rid of them one wonders how come he would be able to restore the common man’s confidence in his party which has been badly shaken by the financial shenanigans of those leaders of the party who have been ruling the roost between 2008 and 2013! He has to shed this extra baggage but the question is how would he be able to do it if Zardari continues to call the shots inside the party? If newspapers reports are to be believed Zardari has been suffering from multiple diseases also. Isn’t it time that he himself calls it a day and hand over the reins of his party to his son, hook, line and sinker?
As far as Bilawal is concernced he is a novice in the politics of this country. Circumstances have thrusted upon him the leadership of his party rather prematurely. The sacrifices of his late mother and maternal grandfather are not going to help him as much in bolstering his political career as his own qualities of head and heart, if he has any. If something is going to help him in advancing his political career as well as improving the image and the status of his party it is going to be the facelift of PPP which is badly required and that is only possible if there is a complete overhaul from top to bottom in the party’s administrative structure and its affairs are entrusted to the genuine and sincere workers of the party who have been ignored by the team which his father had cobbled up. Above all, he needs a regent, an advisor like Bairam Khan for some time who had seen through the initial days of Mughal king Akbar.