Benazir Bhutto - SZABIST

I also remember her discussing Diana's relationship with Dodi Fayed shortly before the Princess died.
"I am sure it is just a summer fling," she said. "I firmly believe it is her attempt to lure Hasnat back to
her. It won't last."
As far as her own love life went, she was completely and utterly in love with her husband Asif. In him
she knew she had found a man who was confident and secure enough in himself to allow a woman to
be really powerful and not to feel threatened.
Asif is also very liberal and they behaved like teenagers together. In public they were very restrained,
but in private or with close friends they were very demonstrative and would hold hands and kiss. You
could feel the passion between them.
She could be very giggly when she was with Asif and I can tell you he was the power behind her
throne because although she was very strong-willed, she always wanted to please him.
He is really the one who has been calling the shots. He is a brilliant man and she always did
everything political that he advised her to do. He will certainly run for office instead of her to maintain
the legacy.
Of course Benazir and Asif did not spend very much time together throughout their 20-year marriage
and had to face major challenges that not many other couples would have survived. In a way it made
their relationship such a romantic one.
Asif was rich when he met the heiress of the political dynasty and became politically involved when
he fell in love with her.
But in 1997 he was jailed on corruption charges and she didn't see him at all for the seven years he
was in prison. She used to joke to me: "My life is strange. It seems that either I am prime minister or
my husband is in jail. There can't be many like me."
During the last three years or so they saw each other only about 25 days a year. Asif lived in New
York where he was undergoing heart treatment while Benazir was in exile in Dubai but they would
speak and email each other all the time.
Both Benazir and their children - Bilawal, Bakhtwar and Aseefa - would travel to New York to see
Asif. She would say: "They must spend time together. It is very important that they know their father."
It was hard for them all. Asif was trying to become a father and husband again, but he found coping
with noise and even a lot of space very difficult after his years in confinement. Even going to a theatre
was a problem and I remember him leaving one venue shortly after we had arrived because he couldn't
cope with the crowds.
Asif was living in an apartment hotel and initially wanted Benazir to stay somewhere else, mainly
because he didn't want to be recognised and also because it wasn't romantic enough for her, but she
gradually persuaded him that they should be together.
They had two dogs - one very small and one that looked like a horse - who both chewed all the
furniture. Benazir didn't complain. She didn't even seem to mind that the flat was sparsely and simply
furnished.