Wednesday, September 03, 2008

From prison to presidency

Sept.3, 2008

From prison to presidency


IT is more or less clear now that Asif Ali Zardari would be elected president of Pakistan in three days from today. While the Sept.6 election is seen as helping end the political uncertainties in the country, a Zardari presidency is most likely to be troubled at best.
It is perhaps the most dramatic turn for Zardari, who spent 11 years in prison on charges of corruption and bribery while his late wife Benazir Bhutto served as prime minister of the country. For a long time, it looked as if he is destined to spend the rest of his life in prison before political changes based on personal imperatives and agendas in Pakistan came to his rescue.
Convictions and more cases against him were either frozen or set aside in the wake of the victory of Bhutto's Pakistan Peoples Party in general elections this year.
It was highly unlikely that Zardari could have even eyed the presidency had it not been for the tragic assassination of his wife shortly before the general elections.
Although Bhutto’s son Bilawal, who is finishing college education in the UK, was named as her successor at the helm of the PPP, Zardari has emerged as the de facto party leader.
It was his firm refusal to reinstate 60 judges dismissed by military ruler Pervez Musharraf last year that led to the collapse of the PPP coalition with former prime minister Nawaz Sharif’s PML-N party. That refusal was and is seen linked to Zardari's fears that Sharif might use the reinstated judges to revive the frozen corruption cases and charges against him and thus politically destroy him. He could indeed reinstate the judges after he is elected president but then it would be too late for revival of cases against him in view of the presidential immunity introduced by Musharraf.
As the date for the presidential elections comes nearer, the people of Pakistan are confused, given the stigma of corruption attached to Zardari's image, further clouded by doctors' reports that he has suffered from severe depression, dementia, and PTSD while he was in prison.
Within the party itself, there are questions about its stability, with Zardari's confidants purging many of Benazir Bhutto’s closest allies from the upper ranks of the party and reports that party workers were growing increasingly disillusioned.
The question that is being openly asked in Pakistan today is how effective and how long could Zardari function as president, given the dark clouds in his political and personal horizons. That question could not have come at a worse point in time for the country.