“Yes, I am confirming that,” Zardari told CNN-IBN when asked about a media report that Bhutto was killed as she was planning to expose an ISI plot to rig the elections. He said Bhutto “has been exposing and talking about the rigging mechanism which is part of this cartel government. And the cartel league is part and parcel of the conspiracy.”

Zardari said Bhutto has already named some people in a letter to President Pervez Musharraf who she felt threatened from and has left another letter that the party was considering.

Bhutto had written a letter to Musharraf on October 16 in which she had named three members of his government who should be investigated in the event of any attack on her.

On the government’s U-turn over the cause of Bhutto’s death, Zardari welcomed that it had finally admitted that she had not died because her head hit the roof-top lever of the car. “I am grateful to Channel 4 which aired this footage and I am sure that it (the U-turn) is because of that.

“They were trying to hide behind various positions. First, they came up with the concept that she got a fracture in her skull and then they came up with this lever excuse. Now, they have admitted. That is encouraging,” Zardari said.

Zardari rejected the Pakistan government’s argument that more time was needed for the elections to be held as poll offices have been targeted in rioting and the ballot paper printing process has been interrupted. “I don’t agree with you because the printing system today is improvised and therefore it’s not a reason. When there was a war in Afghanistan, they called an election. Sri Lanka is always in the state of war and they have elections. This is not war, this is rioting,” Zardari said.

Campaigning

He said the Pakistan People’s Party will take all routes possible to go to the people during the campaigning.

Zardari, however, made it clear his son, 19-year-old Bilawal, who has been made chairman of the PPP following his mother’s death, will not take to the streets to campaign for the party.