NAUDERO, Pakistan — Benazir Bhutto's 19-year-old son was chosen Sunday to succeed her as chairman of her opposition party, while her husband will serve as co-chairman, extending Pakistan's most famous political dynasty to a third generation, party officials said.

The party also decided to contest upcoming elections, apparently ending the threat of a wholesale boycott by Pakistan's political opposition as the key U.S.-ally struggles to transition to democracy after years of military rule.

Shakil Adil/AP (ENLARGE)

Asif Ali Zardari (left) widower of Pakistan's former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, gestures along side their son Bilawal during Bhutto's burial at her family's mausoleum, in Garhi Khuda Bakhsh, near Larkana, Pakistan on Friday.

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The decisions were made at a closed meeting of the Pakistan Peoples Party central executive committee, three days after the two-time prime minister was assassinated in a suicide attack, two party officials told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to disclose the information.

It catapults Bilawal Zardari, an Oxford University student with no political experience, to the center of Pakistan's tumultuous public life. Bhutto's husband Asif Ali Zardari, 51, is powerbroker in the party who served as environment minister in her second government.