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Rich image hurts Peoples Party chief

Other News Materials 26 October 2007 07:24 (UTC +04:00)

(Gulfnews) -Benazir Bhutto's pale skin, designer clothes and degrees from Harvard and Oxford seem to contradict her self-appointed role as saviour of the country's poor and illiterate - particularly in Karachi's slums.

Campaign posters of the former prime minister, once nicknamed "Pinkie" because of her rosy complexion, cover grimy storefronts in poor neighbourhoods where her support is strongest. Black graffiti welcomes her home after an eight-year absence.

"We will stand by B.B." said Karim Dad Baluch, 66, his dark skin leathery and wrinkled.

"We will bring back people's rule in this country," Bhutto promised on her return from exile last week. "We will not rest until we provide shelter, food and clothes to all people of the four provinces," she said.

How long the poor would wait is uncertain.

"We live in total chaos," said Abdul Ghani, 58, who earns about $40 (Dh146.8) a month peddling feed for the donkeys and camels that meander through the squalid streets of the Lyari slum, a Bhutto stronghold. "She is rich, but she hasn't lived here for a long time. Right now, she is nobody."

"A kleptocrat in a Hermes scarf," read the headline of a recent editorial in Britain's Daily Telegraph by Jemima Khan, daughter of the late billionaire, Sir James Goldsmith, and ex-wife of cricket star-turned-politician Imran Khan, a bitter Bhutto opponent.

"I'm concerned about making enough money each day to buy bread," said Abdul Baluch, 68, pedalling his bicycle and selling taps for water bottles in Lyari. "Things have gotten worse over the years. I don't care who comes along next as long as they help."

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