Bilawal Bhutto, the teenaged son of slain Benazir Bhutto, was being groomed by his mother for a career in politics.

Bilawal, who turned 19 in September and uses his mother’s surname, was three months old when his mother first became the prime minister of Pakistan in 1988.

He will be the third leader of the 40-year-old Pakistan People’s Party, one of Pakistan’s most powerful political forces. Though he was named the chairman of the party, he will have to wait for another six years to contest an election.

He will follow in the footsteps of his grandfather Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who founded the PPP in 1967 and served as prime minister for four years in the mid-1970s, and his mother Benazir, who took over at the age of 26 after her father was hanged by the military regime of Gen Zia-ul-Haq in 1979.

The suave and handsome Bilawal, who is studying at Oxford — his mother and grandfather Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s alma mater — is taking an early plunge into politics following his mother’s assassination on December 27.

Bilawal reportedly fainted on hearing about his mother’s death in Dubai and was inconsolable at his mother’s funeral. He had joined his father and his sisters for an Eid break in Dubai and was to fly back to his college this week.

Proud of the Bhutto legacy, Bilawal once said he had “powerful role models” in the family who would influence his career choices when he is older Bilawal, the eldest of Bhutto’s children, is described as a fitness freak and a keen sports enthusiast. He is a black belt in Taekwondo and also loves swimming, horse riding, squash and target shooting.

In a rare interview to a Pakistani daily three years ago, he said he regretted that he could not play cricket because of the “circumstances in which my family had been put”.

Bilawal spent his childhood with his two sisters Bakhtawar (17) and Asifa (14) in Dubai and London after his mother went into self-imposed exile.

He did his “O” levels from the elitist Rashid School for Boys in Dubai and served as a vice-president of the students’ council there. He joined Oxford soon after turning 19. Bhutto fiercely guarded her children’s privacy and kept them away from the prying eyes of the media.