Friends of Benazir Bhutto, the opposition leader and former Prime Minister of Pakistan who was assassinated during the vacation, have remembered fondly her time at Oxford.Bhutto read PPE at Lady Margaret Hall between 1973-1977, and in 1977 she became the first Asian woman to be elected President of the Union.The election that she won was filled with controversy, and had to be rerun after Bhutto accused her rival of illegal canvassing. There were also allegations against Bhutto’s supporters and calls for an election tribunal to be held. However, it seems that no action was taken against Bhutto or her opponents.Cherwell reported in 1976 after winning the Presidency her rival candidate attacked her staircase, setting on fire a bin at the bottom of her staircase, and launching fireworks at her door.Buckets of sand were emptied out and light bulbs were smashed on her staircase.Her term as President was not without amusement. In an debate in 1977 Peter Oppenheimer, now a Fellow of Economics at Christ Church, said in a debate that Bhutto was “was the next best thing to [American actress and sex symbol] Raquel Welch in the chair.”Alan Duncan, who was Bhutto’s campaign manager in the Union elections and is now a Shadow Secretary of State, has described her as “fiery and fun.” In a comment piece for this week’s Cherwell he recalls, “For some absurd reason she decided to repaint the President’s office powder blue and some of us willingly helped her; only I don’t think we ever removed the books first. I took a call on the President’s red telephone while Benazir was up a ladder with a paintbrush, only to find myself speaking to her father. He was the first Prime Minister I’d ever spoken to. A few weeks later he was deposed by Zia ul Haq and, in an act of unspeakable act of viciousness, hanged a year later.”Michael Crick, another contemporary and Political Editor of Newsnight, told the national press that she had shown determination in her electoral bid to become Union President, and said that she had actually failed to win the election three times.He said, “She put all this effort into becoming president of the union, which was a bit pointless given she intended to scale much higher peaks.” Crick said that though Bhutto had bipartisan appeal, with friends in both Labour and Conservative camps in Oxford, she was not entirely popular. “Some people thought she was using her name and money to buy the presidency,” he said.Crick recalls that one particular speaker at the Union “brought the house down” by referring to Bhutto with the words, “Your father is, I believe, a butcher”. At this time, her father was facing accusation of murdering family members of a rival leader in Pakistan.Another long-time friend who she met at Oxford, the author Victoria Schofield, said, “She was very charismatic. […] We were a drab lot of 1970s students, messy and not very well-off… and there was this exotic woman who drove a sports car, when we mostly rode bicycles, and had lots of friends.“She enjoyed the Union but she liked socialising as well, she liked parties and wearing nice dresses.”
by Mohsin Khan
Friends mourn ‘exceptional leader’
