Baby Joins Bhutto in Pakistani Campaign

Opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, who plans to play a major role in Pakistan’s national elections in two months, gave birth to a son Wednesday, her first child.

Her mother, Nusrat Bhutto, said the 7-pound baby was delivered by Caesarean section four to five weeks prematurely at Lady Dufferin Charity Hospital, a public hospital in Karachi.

Hospital sources said that Bhutto, 35, daughter of former Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was admitted to the hospital Tuesday night and that both mother and child were in good health. She was expected to remain at the hospital for three days, and at home another week.

Bhutto, who was educated at Harvard and Oxford, married Asef Ali Zardari, a wealthy local businessman and landowner, on Dec. 18, 1987. The marriage was arranged by their two families according to Pakistani custom.

Nusrat Bhutto, talking to reporters after the delivery, offered no explanation as to why the birth may have been premature. Her daughter maintained a hectic schedule in recent weeks, addressing rallies and news conferences in preparation for the Nov. 16 National Assembly elections.

Government critics have suggested that former President Zia ul-Haq scheduled the election for November in an attempt to hinder the campaign of Bhutto, who was to have been in the final weeks of her pregnancy then.

Benazir Bhutto is awaiting a Supreme Court ruling on the elections, which were announced by President Zia last July. Before he died in a plane crash Aug. 17, Zia had said that candidates must run as individuals, rather than affiliated with parties.

Bhutto, who feels that would favor candidates of the governing party, challenged the decree, and the caretaker government asked the court to decide.

If elections are held on a party basis, Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party is expected to do well against Zia loyalists, who are split into two factions of the center-right Pakistan Muslim League.

Bhutto’s father, a democratically elected prime minister, was overthrown in a 1977 coup by then army chief of staff Zia and was hanged two years later on charges of arranging the murder of a political opponent.

Benazir Bhutto spent almost five years in jail or under house arrest between 1977 and 1984 under Zia’s military regime. After two years in exile in London, she returned to Pakistan in April, 1986, after the lifting of martial law and was received by hundreds of thousands of jubilant supporters.

She failed to rally sufficient support to topple Zia, however, and has campaigned vigorously for “free and fair” elections.

Nusrat Bhutto, who is co-chairwoman of the Pakistan People’s Party along with her daughter, arrived in Pakistan last Saturday from self-imposed exile in Europe to take part in the campaign.