Asif Ali Zardari has won power "“ now he must use it properly
Bronwen Maddox
A bad day in Pakistan, and it's going to get worse: in three days' time a man ill-suited to be president is probably going to sweep into that office. Benazir Bhutto's widower, Asif Ali Zardari, has all but secured his elevation on Saturday, but the deals that he appears to have struck to buy that passage suggest that he has no great loyalty to her principles, including her general support for the US. Nor, most seriously, does he seem to have a clear plan for the economic crisis that Pakistan now faces.
This week, in an expensive comment on the turmoil, the bond and swaps markets reckoned that Pakistan's government debt was the riskiest in the world, putting the threat of default above that in Argentina. Citibank, in a new report, recommended that Pakistan seek help from the International Monetary Fund to avoid that fate within months. Easier said than done. In Pakistan the initials "IMF" will provoke an extra prickle of the antiWestern suspicion that is already running dangerously high, despite nine years of calm relations. The IMF, for its part, has hardly forgotten its furious rows with Pakistan's governments during the "lost decade" of the 1990s "“ most of all because of Bhutto's failure to quell corruption in her party or make reforms.
Pervez Musharraf, when President, was prone to invite those he thought were on his side over to Army House for hot chocolate, a childish comfort in more than adult times. As he sits, still, in that fortified mansion, brooding over his eviction from office and perhaps still sipping that drink, he can credit himself with getting the economy right, even if he flunked democracy. The IMF, after a stroppy interlude with the Government of Nawaz Sharif in 1997-99, only relaxed as Musharraf and his technocrats made more people pay taxes, cut deficits and attracted investment. The "9/11 dividend", after Musharraf backed the US, helped too.
Now we are back two decades, in just a few months. The huge leap in food and fuel prices had already ensured that the new Government would have a savagely difficult economic challenge, never mind the tattered Constitution, and the difficulty of glueing together any coalition. But the worry is that Zardari has so far shown a surer instinct for striking deals to win power than for saving Pakistan once he gets it.
In securing support from three of the four provincial assemblies (which, together with the national Parliament, elect the president), he has outstepped Sharif. But he has done so, for example, by agreeing to reopen two radical madrassas that were closed over their links to terrorism, in an attempt to get Jamiat Ulema Islam, a pro-Taleban group, to support him. That move will undermine attempts to fight terrorism on the western border.
But the first problems will be on the economy, where Zardari, with a reputation as an intellectual lightweight compared with Bhutto, and immersed in politicking, has not offered a reassuring plan. There are stories of him delivering rambling lectures to expert economists, forestalling their advice.
In which case, the questions become whether he has risen on the freak circumstances of his wife's assassination and, lacking her popularity, whether his tenure will be short.
World Media Lambaste "President" Zardari
While Asif Ali Zardari's meteoric rise will be complete with his seemingly inevitable election to become president of Pakistan, grave doubts about his character, based on persistent allegations of corruption and violence, will continue to linger in the minds of many in Pakistan and the world. Here's a sampling of how Mr. Zardari is seen by the world media:
Excerpt from Wall Street Journal's Global View Column by Bret Stephens:
Al Qaeda and the Taliban feed on chaos, and a Zardari presidency will almost certainly provide more of it. For Pakistanis, this is a self-inflicted wound and a rebuke to their democracy. For the rest of world, it's a matter of hoping that Pakistan will somehow muddle through. For now, however, this looks like a Category 5 hurricane, dark and vast and visible just offshore.
Just how bad is Mr. Zardari? It would be a relief if it were true that he was merely suffering from dementia, a diagnosis offered by two New York psychiatrists last year. But that diagnosis seems to have been produced mainly with a view toward defending himself against corruption charges in a British court.
Mr. Zardari -- who earned the moniker "Mr. 10%" for allegedly demanding kickbacks during his wife's two terms in office -- has long been dogged by accusations of corruption. In 2003, a Swiss magistrate found him and Mrs. Bhutto guilty of laundering $10 million. Mr. Zardari has admitted to owning a 355-acre estate near London, despite coming from a family of relatively modest means and reporting little income at the time it was purchased. A 1998 report by the New York Times's John Burns suggests he may have made off with as much as $1.5 billion in kickbacks. This was at a time when his wife was piously claiming to represent the interests of Pakistan's impoverished masses and denouncing corrupt leaders who "leave the cupboard bare."
Excerpt from UK's Times Online:
An election victory would be a huge turn of fortune for a man who was nicknamed "Mr Ten Per Cent" because of allegations, denied by him, that he received kickbacks when his wife was the Prime Minister. Mr Zardari, 52, has spent a total of 11 years in prison on a variety of charges, longer than any other Pakistani politician.
Excerpts from AP Report:
Asif Ali Zardari, the man poised to become Pakistan's next president, is still known as "Mr 10 Per cent" because of corruption allegations. Now his own lawyers say he may have suffered from mental health problems within the past year.
That has left many Pakistanis wondering: Is this the best man for the job?
"People have short memories, but not that short," said Rafat Saeed, 42, as he parked his car in the bustling city of Karachi following a week of political turmoil and relentless violence by Islamic militants.
"His name is synonymous with corruption!" Friends and family say Zardari, widower of assassinated former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, is fine now and fit to rule. But the questions over his psychological state could continue to haunt him.
Excerpt from New York Times:
Switzerland has released millions of dollars in assets belonging to Asif Ali Zardari, a leading Pakistani politician who is expected to be named the country's president next week, Swiss authorities said.
The value of the assets is about $60 million, said a Swiss official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the figure had not been disclosed publicly.
The Swiss action came as a shock to Daniel Devaud, the judge in Geneva who originally investigated the charges. He said it should not be interpreted as a sign of Mr. Zardari's innocence.
"It would be very difficult to say that there is nothing in the files that shows there was possibly corruption going on after what I have seen in there," Mr. Devaud said in a telephone interview. "After I heard what the general prosecutor said, I have the feeling we are talking about two different cases."
Can Mr. Asif Ali Zardari, expected to become the 13th president of Pakistan this Saturday, succeed with this elephant of massive corruption charges in the room, and still help unify Pakistan in its most difficult hour? Only time will tell. Let's hope for the sake of Pakistan and world peace that he is a changed man, and pray that he does succeed in bringing peace and prosperity to Pakistan and its neighborhood.
Here's a video clip of Asif Ali Zardari interviewed on the eve of Pakistani elections in February, 2008:
In the first part of this Pakistan elections special, Sir ...
11 min -
www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yPfpl6daG0
|