The New Nation - Internet Edition

Rasul Bakhsh Rais

Analysts of Pakistani political scene are baffled by the sudden turn of fortunes for Mr. Asif Ali Zardari. Before the assassination of his wife Benazir Bhutto in a suicide attack in Rawalpindi December last, he was near irrelevant to what was happening in the country. Bhutto, conscious of the political baggage of Zardari's tainted image and of the countless charges of corruption against him in the Pakistani and foreign courts, had decided to keep him out of politics for a while.

She wanted to clear her and his way back to politics through the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO), a concession she wrenched from former president Pervez Musharraf under pressure of the popular movement she led. Under the deal, she would work with Musharraf in return for withdrawal of all corruption charges against Zardari and herself.

Zardari was pretty happy enjoying his wealth and free time in Dubai, Europe and North America. If anything, his role was to manage the assets family had built up and provide company to three children at different levels of education abroad. He was no more than a househusband, simply waiting for the good times to return when corruption charges would be dropped and his wife's party, Pakistan People's Party (PPP), would stage a political comeback.

Things suddenly changed for him when his spouse, perhaps the most popular leader in the country, was gunned down. Spurred on by adversity, Zardari took charge of everything that was associated with the charismatic Bhuttos and their political legacy. Is the rise of Zardari due to sheer luck, opportune political circumstances or some personal qualities? How stable is his handle on power? What are the challenges to his leadership?

Amid wild guesses and pure speculations, Zardari decided to capture the leadership of the PPP. Many within the party and outside had thought that Zardari, neither charismatic nor a man of the masses but a person of private pursuits and pleasures and suffering a poor national and international image, would stay as powerbroker and at the back of the party rather than capture its central stage. He surprised everyone by capturing the party, which he announced at the end of the 40-day mourning period for his wife.

He placed a handwritten will of Benazir Bhutto before the executive council of the party that sought her son Bilawal Zardari to be the next chairman of the PPP if she were to be assassinated, which she feared she might be. His close acolytes in the meeting proposed that since Bilawal was yet to complete his education, Zardari take charge of the party as co-chairman, which he accepted as a challenge. That sealed the fate of Makhdoom Amin Fahim, a leader who has led the PPP for more than eight years when the Bhuttos were in exile and had rejected inducement from the military regime to become the prime minister of the country.

It is not uncommon how Zardari manoeuvred to keep the leadership of the party within the family. Other political families of the subcontinent in distress have done the same. The first political instinct of dynastic party leaders is that the dynastic show must go on irrespective of the tragedy that has struck them. Zardari made some absolutely shrewd and well-calculated moves to keep the reign of the party in his hands.

That was the first crucial political battle he won without any clear or open resistance. There have been splits in the PPP before over leadership when Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the founder, was hanged by Zia-ul-Haq's military regime after a controversial murder conviction. The young Benazir Bhutto claimed the leadership mantle and those separated from the party were isolated and their factions disintegrated. There are no challengers to Zardari's leadership of the PPP today. Yes, there are quite a few disgruntled party leaders but they cannot create any formidable rival faction to match the strength of the main party led by Zardari, and that perhaps keeps them in the fold.

He has also played his cards well with the other two contenders, Pervez Musharraf and Mian Nawaz Sharif. Zardari has a political style of guarded ambiguity, which got the best out of the other two rivals. He postured himself as a man in the middle, appearing to work with Musharraf, while accepting Sharif's party, Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), as a coalition partner. He first assured Musharraf of his support to him as an elected president through public gestures and private emissaries. Likewise he openly committed himself to restoring all judges through an executive order to their pre-November 3, 2007 position. Mr. Sharif had made restoration of judges as a condition for joining the coalition.

It was an absolutely smart move, almost Machiavellian, to use coalition partnership of Nawaz to oust Musharraf with a credible threat of impeachment. Once the military ruler was out of the way, Zardari reneged on his public declaration to restore all judges, saying the circumstances had changed and that political commitments are not sacrosanct after all. Disappointed, Nawaz had no choice but to leave the coalition, which he quickly did to save his reputation and his credibility with his constituency of lawyers and civil society that supported him.

In yet another surprising move, Zardari nominated himself as the candidate for presidency; many thought that he would like to become the prime minister himself instead of running a government through a puppet prime minister. He was elected with an overwhelming majority of the electoral colleges' votes, which comprises of National Assembly, Senate and the four provincial assemblies.

Indisputably, Mr. Asif Ali Zardari is the most powerful leader in Pakistan today. His party holds all three major offices - speaker of the National Assembly, prime ministership and presidency; and the party shares power in all four provinces with other partners.

It cannot be without some personal quality and political merit that Zardari has built so broad a coalition and fashioned it successfully. He even appears to be in a position to oust Muslim League (Nawaz)-dominated government in Punjab, if and when he wishes to by aligning with the desperate members of the Muslim League (Q), which acted as a political front for Musharraf.

But Zardari, powerful as he appears to be, is vulnerable to charges of corruption and might face challenges from more than one quarter. The NRO cannot wash his moral or political image squeaky clean; it is a legal relief and may not be long-lasting. That fear is behind his reluctance in restoring Mr Iftikhar Muhammad Choudhry to his position as chief justice, because he had accepted a petition challenging the constitutionality of NRO.

If the economy continues to falter and with rising tide of terrorism making domestic and foreign investment impossible, the opposition parties may soon take to the streets. A parallel civil society and lawyers movement is likely to take off in the coming weeks and months. It is difficult to say whether or not selective restoration of high courts' and supreme court judges through fresh oath of office with the purpose of isolating Chief Justice Choudhry would diffuse the movement. The odds are that it will not.

Finally, the issue of civil-military relations remains unsettled. Assuming that the many powers that Zardari has may be a boon but it can also be a negative factor under unsettled economic and political conditions. Much would depend on how he handles these issues and how quickly he establishes credibility for himself; also on how effectively his government demonstrates the capacity to deliver on security, economy and social harmony. All these areas need urgent inputs and more of the same situation would only destabilise Mr. Zardari and his government.

(Source: Asian Affairs)