Azif Ali Zardari, widower of former premier Benazir Bhutto, has said he will be an "advisory figure" like Congress president Sonia Gandhi, but without a seat in parliament, if his Pakistan People's Party is voted to power in the next month's elections.
"If our party wins a majority in next month's elections, I will not take a cabinet post but will act like Sonia Gandhi, as an advisory figure without a seat in Parliament," the PPP leader, who was made the party's co-chairman following the assassination of his wife, said in an interview published in The Sunday Times on Sunday.
At the same time, he expressed his apprehensions about the election being held at all. "We don't have any faith that there will be elections. They might make another huge incident. Anyone could be a target," he said.
The elections which were earlier scheduled for January 8 were put off till Feb 18 following Bhutto's assassination on Dec 27 and the ensuing violence that left scores of people dead.
Zardari said the night before Benazir Bhutto was assassinated he had begged his wife on the phone to stop holding election rallies and let him take her place.
"She had just addressed this public meeting in Peshawar where they'd caught this suicide bomber," Zardari said.
"I told her, for God's sake be careful, but she said, 'what can I do? I have to go and meet my people.' I pleaded with her: you stay home and I'll go do the rallies. You're the mother."
