Benazir Bhutto's 19-year-old son, Bilawal Bhutto, has been appointed chairman of his late mother's opposition party in Pakistan.

The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) announced its decision on Sunday, three days after Benazir Bhutto's assassination in the city of Rawalpindi. The party named her widower, Asif Ali Zardari, as co-chairman.

Bilawal Bhutto, centre, at a news conference Sunday with his father, Asif Ali Zardari, left, and party president Amin Fahim.
(Shakil Adil/Associated Press)

"I will stand as a symbol of the federation," Bilawal Bhutto told reporters at his family's home in Naudero. "The party's long and historic struggle for democracy will continue with renewed vigour, and I stand committed to the stability of the federation. My mother always said democracy is the best revenge."

Zardari was a minister in one of Bhutto's short-lived governments and faced corruption charges, along with his wife, after Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif came to power in 1990. He denied the charges, saying they were politically motivated.

Bhutto's mother died in a suicide bombing on Dec. 27, two months after her return to Pakistan, ending a self-imposed exile in Dubai and Britain that began about eight years ago. 

Her death continues to anger some Pakistani Canadians who gathered for a Sunday rally at the Ontario legislature in Toronto, demanding the federal government and international community investigate her assassination and help protect democracy in the south Asian country.

Bilawal, the eldest of three children, has spent half his life outside his home country and doesn't speak the local dialects of Pakistan.

He is in his first year of studying law at Oxford University, his mother's alma mater. He says he will continue his studies, and while he does, his father will be acting chair or co-chair of the PPP.

It will be some years before he can hope to take office on the national political scene. Under Pakistani law, he cannot run for a seat in parliament until he is 25 years old and cannot serve as prime minister until he is 35.

PPP delegates also announced on Sunday that their party will contest the upcoming parliamentary election.

Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif of the Pakistan Muslim League responded to the news by saying that his party, too, will run candidates.

Although both main opposition parties are taking part, it's looking less and less likely that the election will go ahead as planned on Jan. 8.

The country's ruling party, Pakistan Muslim League-Q, said earlier Sunday that the election may be delayed up to four months because of the assassination.

PML-Q information secretary Tariq Azim said the vote would lose credibility if held as planned because the PPP was in mourning and other opposition groups may boycott the vote.

"How long the postponement will be for will be up to the election commission," Azim told the Associated Press. "I think we are looking at a delay of a few weeks ... of up to three or four months."

Imran Khan, who leads Pakistan's marginal Tehreek-e-Insaf party, is calling for a postponement.

"The elections should definitely be postponed," he said. "We demand Gen. [Pervez] Musharraf resign. We need a caretaker set up here, a neutral caretaker, approved by all the political parties, and we need the reinstatement of the judges who should conduct an inquiry into what happened on Dec. 27."

The country's electoral commission meets on Monday to decide whether the elections will go ahead.