RENEE MONTAGNE, Host:
He may also have the last word in Pakistani politics as well, as NPR's Philip Reeves reports.
PHILIP REEVES: This is the place where Benazir Bhutto was killed - a shrine with flowers and candles has sprung up on the sidewalk. Roger Mohammad Yasin(ph) is standing beside it in tears.
ROGER MOHAMMAD YASIN: (Speaking foreign language)
REEVES: Since Bhutto's assassination, Yasin has spent every day at this place, here in the city of Rawalpindi. Today, it's raining and very cold. Yasin is 27 in penniless. He says every night, he sleeps here beside the shrine on the ground.
MOHAMMAD YASIN: (Through translator) She is our leader. I don't want to leave her.
REEVES: Yasin speaks of Benazir Bhutto as if she's a deity. But he also reveres the man who's replaced her.
MOHAMMAD YASIN: (Through translator) He is capable of running the party. People's Party has a bright future.
REEVES: That man is Asif Ali Zardari, Bhutto's husband. For years, Zardari has been one of the most controversial figures in Pakistani politics. Now, he could soon be one of the most powerful.
(SOUNDBITE OF MEN YELLING)
REEVES: Unidentified Man: It was pre-plan. It was pre-planned as such.
REEVES: Zardari immediately installed their son, Bilawal, as the party's chairman and symbolic leader. The party's always been a dynasty. But Bilawal is only 19 years old and still immersed in his studies at Oxford University. 51- year-old Zardari is the man in charge.
TARIQ BHATT: He wants to run the party. He wants to become the prime minister.
REEVES: Journalist Tariq Bhatt(ph) has tracked Zardari for 20 years.
BHATT: He wants to be a king. He wants to be the real power. He wants to replace Benazir Bhutto now after she is dead.
REEVES: Retired Air Vice Marshal Raji Mussefsai(ph), a party stalwart, is impressed.
RAJI MUSSEFSAI: He delivered himself very well on friends, and despite the fact that he has had no exposure in the last few years.
TANVE AHMED KHAM: The nation of Pakistan is a very insecure nation today. It's paranoid.
REEVES: That's Tanve Ahmed Kham(ph), he was foreign secretary in one of Bhutto's governments.
AHMED KHAM: Anybody who can hold out the promise of just steering the ship of the state through these trouble and waters can get enormous dividend out of it - a big deal will be forgotten.
REEVES: Not, says, Tanve Ahmed Kham in Pakistan.
AHMED KHAM: Anybody can really have a (unintelligible) in Pakistani politics. I mean, you know, he knows that in the short run, there'll be far too much opposition. And people will recap all things. He knows that there has to be the intermediate stage. But this does not mean that they'll not have long-term memberships.
REEVES: Like Benazir Bhutto, Zardari talks of a progressive, moderate Pakistan. But his style is different. That much was clear, says Tanve Ahmed Kham, while Bhutto was in office.
AHMED KHAM: Mr. - intended to withdraw into a group of his own making. They tough in their manners. They toughened their attitudes. And they did not resonate well with the more literate segments of the People's Party.
REEVES: Journalist Tariq Bhatt agreed that Zardari is fun to be with, but not always.
BHATT: He has that professional of being autocratic. And he, at times, is very insulting to people. But maybe he will change himself. Some people says he has the ability to change and he has changed himself after the death of Benazir Bhutto.
REEVES: But Nusraph Javet(ph), a TV presenter and political commentator says Zardari played a huge part in Bhutto's life.
NUSRAPH JAVET: I know it for a fact she was almost madly in-love with him.
REEVES: Speaking at the Bhutto ancestral home on the day he took charge, Zardari said he didn't know exactly why Benazir Bhutto had chosen him as leader.
ASIF ALI ZARDARI: She saw something in me that you haven't. I don't know whether I'm up to the task, only time shall tell. I have a lot of friends with me. I have a lot of - the whole party with me - to guide me.
REEVES: And the corruption allegations...
ALI ZARDARI: Obviously, she didn't believe them and neither did the people of Pakistan.
REEVES: Some of the people of Pakistan aren't so sure. At the scene of Bhutto's killing, Mohammad Afrak(ph), a carpenter, has come to pay his respects. He says he's a party loyalist mourning his lost leader. And he doesn't much like her replacement.
MOHAMMAD AFRAK: Philip Reeves, NPR News, Islamabad.