Lahore, Feb 6: A day after the publication of Benazir hutto's one-page "political will", her husband and Pakistan eople's Party (PPP) Co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari has said that e may or may not opt to become the Prime Minister of Pakistan.

In a telephonic interview to Newsweek, Zardari claimed that the PP rank and file recognised him like none other in the party. Addressing party office-bearers, Benazir wrote in her will that, I would like my husband ... Zardari to lead you in this interim eriod until you and he decide what is best," the magazine quoted er handwritten will, as saying.

"Zardari is considered a mistrusted - and divisive - figure in akistan. He is widely blamed for the tangle of corruption that trangled and cut short Benazir's terms in office," according to he magazine.

Newsweek also quotes Syed Farooq Hasnat, a scholar at ashington's Middle East Institute, as saying, "Pakistanis are ot ready for Zardari."

Asked whether he was now interested in the prime ministership, ardari told the magazine, "In order to be prime minister you ave to be a member of parliament. I'm not running for this arliament at the moment."

Asked how he could justify the rather feudal practice of making a odern political party a family legacy, Zardari told Newsweek hat he was following his wife's lead.

"She herself started her career as co-chairman with her mother," he Daily Times quoted him as telling the magazine.


ANI