By Faisal Aziz
"If I am martyred before completing the mission of Benazir Bhutto, then I should also be buried here," Asif Ali Zardari said in a speech on Thursday to thousands of mourners gathered outside a white marble mausoleum in his wife's ancestral village.
While not a presidential election, the outcome could have serious consequences for U.S. ally President Pervez Musharraf, who came to power as a general in a coup in 1999 and is now going through his most unpopular period.
The PPP's likely choice for the premiership is its deputy chairman, Makhdoom Amin Fahim.
About 20,000 people gathered in the village of Garhi Khuda Baksh to pay their last respects to the most charismatic Pakistani politician of the past 20 years.
Before Zardari could enter the tomb, hordes of people forced their way inside chanting "Long Live Bhutto", some weeping and beating their heads in grief.
Moments earlier he had prayed at the rose petal strewn grave in the mausoleum where Bhutto lies alongside her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Pakistan's first popularly elected prime minister.
"Zulfikar Ali Bhutto laid down his life for his mission and so did his daughter. I myself and the party will take forward this mission," said Zardari, who spent eight years in jail but was never convicted of corruption charges he says were politically motivated.
Controversy even rages over whether Bhutto was killed by a bullet or by a concussive head injury caused by the bomb detonated after an assassin shot at her from close range.
"Right now, I can only say that two suspects have been apprehended in this connection," Hamid Nawaz told Reuters.
The government and the Central Intelligence Agency suspect the involvement of a Pakistani Taliban commander with links to al Qaeda, which they say is trying to destabilise nuclear-armed Pakistan.
A British police team that the government invited to investigate is expected to submit its report on Friday, according to Pakistani media.
The PPP named Bhutto's 19-year-old son, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari as party chairman and Zardari as co-chairman, in accordance with a will Bhutto wrote just before she returned to Pakistan in October, eight years after being hounded out.
Huge portraits of Bhutto hung alongside the red, green and black tricolour of the PPP in and around the tomb.
(Writing by Zeeshan Haider; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore and David Fogarty)