Bilawal no brat heir to a political throne

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Bilawal seems to have disappointed media critics who besieged him at his first international press conference in London Tuesday. "I'm sure you'll understand I'm nervous," he said disarmingly, and then proceeded to show no nerves at all. At 19, he handled questions with an ease and aplomb that politicians many years his senior often do not manage.

Disappointing, visibly, to Western-bred media because he failed to live up to an image someone could hold up and scorn. Because that desire to scorn him was strong; just some brat heir to a political throne when democracy must produce no family heirs, the fumbling boy who ended up saying silly things, or nothing at all; the mindless pawn in the hands of self-seeking courtiers.

Bilawal did better than all that. Do you fear for your life? "I fear more for my privacy," he shot back. And had he been handed leadership of the party like it was a piece of furniture? "It was the collective will of the party," Bilawal said. And what kind of security for him? "I can't comment on any security arrangements we've made."

He handled political questions as well. How can extremism in Pakistan be handled? "Once the U.S. stops supporting dictators, we can tackle the extremist problem." So, at 19, Bilawal can have more sense than someone called George W. Bush at 61. Father Asif Zardari's dubious record? "Not a single case has been proven against him." Never mind agreement; the boy managed to say readily the best he could under the circumstances. It could have been a lot worse.

And his own career in politics? "I intend to learn," he replied. He wouldn't have the wisdom to handle politics, he said, "unless I develop maturity." But he is preparing for Pakistan, on that he left no doubt. "Politics is in my blood."

That matter of inheritance, then. That can, naturally, be used for ever to knock this boy's legitimacy. Of course he wouldn't be there if not for a political mother who was assassinated -- as she wouldn't have been without a political father who was hanged. The PPP did not quite elect Bilawal; it elected to accept his inheritance, as it did with his mother earlier.

Dubiously, perhaps, it can be argued that if a party majority chooses to accept dynasty, then the dynastic choice becomes democratic. On the other hand, opposition to this argument is obvious - it would be truly democratic for political leaders, not least they dynastic ones, to terminate this tradition. The sub-continental commonness of dynastic induction into political life does not therefore legitimise it. But in the meantime, princes too must prove themselves, and convince by conduct they are good for what they inherited by accident.

To that extent Bilawal shows extraordinary promise. Even, signs of a charisma in the making. The boy is bright and handsome; he has poise, and clarity of mind. And a confidence that can only grow. No doubt that away from his classes at Oxford, he will be given some lessons in statecraft (including some Urdu lessons) by those under whose political tutelage he has fallen. Among those, principally Wajid Shamsul Hasan, former Pakistani high commissioner to London, and a long and trusted aide of Benazir. "I will be looking after the boy," Hasan told CNN-IBN simply.

No one can say Bilawal learnt his early flair at Oxford; the chap has been there all of eight weeks. Which itself should rub some of the arrogance off the barrage the British media had prepared for him -- it wasn't an Oxford education that taught him to handle his first glare of real public exposure they brought to bear on him. He proved himself too correct to be ridiculed, too confident to be patronised. Oxford will find, in Bilawal, pretty promising raw material to work with. The British media dislike of a handsome political heir they cannot overawe is of itself recognition of promise.

The young can perform, and they can lead, as Bilawal will no doubt read at Oxford. In 1783 William Pitt became the youngest ever prime minister of Britain - at the age of 24. He did not inherit that position, but he too, was inevitably ridiculed for it. "A sight to make all nations stand and stare/A kingdom trusted to a schoolboy's care" ran an opposition song at the time. No doubt the Pakistani opposition, a deal more adept at political couplets than the British, would find enough to say about Bilawal's youthful inheritance were he to enter Pakistani politics early enough. But soon, that question of how he got there will be overtaken by that bigger question - what he does when he's out there.

If he gets there, that is. And that is by no means certain. A few years can be a long time in Pakistani politics. Who can say whether post-assassination Bhutto loyalty will last a few weeks, let alone a few years. Or that father Asif Zardari (too late for him to be renamed a Bhutto) will find acceptance and success in the meanwhile. And that the rest of PPP leadership will spend years in doorman position waiting for this boy to grow up, to then usher him in to lead them.

The pile of odds against Bilawal is high. The best anyone can say of him is that he seems to have sense enough to see that pile for what it is, to see that the Bhutto name has opened the first doorway for him, that it alone will not open all. He can hardly be credited with finding himself in the position he is in; but conducting himself this first occasion as he did was undoubtedly creditable. The man will have to carry forward what birth and fate handed to the boy.