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Pakistan's next president may prove as divisive as its last, writes Graham Usher in Islamabad
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Asif Ali Zardari
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For the second time in a year on 6 September members of Pakistan's national and provincial assemblies will be voting for a new president. Pervez Musharraf's "re-election" last year turned out to be the harbinger of wrenching change. His successor's poll may be just as fateful.
Musharraf's dubious victory in October 2007 incurred a slew of legal challenges. These led him to impose martial law, sack the higher judiciary and, indirectly, repatriate Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, the country's most powerful civilian leaders. The confluence of these events -- coupled with Bhutto's murder in December -- brought about the beginning of Musharraf's fall.
In the February 2008 parliamentary elections his parties were trashed by an alliance of her Pakistan People's Party (PPP) and Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N). Six months later the ex-dictator was shown the door courtesy of a choreographed move by the PPP and PML-N on the one side and the army, the US and Britain on the other, the last three once Musharraf's sturdiest pillars. A year is a long time in politics. For Musharraf it must seem an eternity.
There are unlikely to be legal challenges against the new president. Unlike the rigged suffrage that saw Musharraf through, the electorate on 6 September is broadly representative of Pakistan's national and regional powers. Yet the premonition of many is that this presidential contest may be no less divisive than the last.
This is because of the personality of the probable victor: Bhutto's widower and PPP leader, Asif Ali Zardari. Polls show him ahead. But it won't make him liked, says an observer who refused to be attributed.
In Pakistan Zardari "is abhorred by urban middle class professionals and intellectuals," he says. "Most describe him as a brazen, un- conscientious plunderer of national wealth who is out to turn the entire country into real estate and flog it to India and the Americans". Even PPP members question his "integrity", says a PPP member.
In many ways the characterisation is unfair. Zardari spent 11 years in jail on charges levelled by Pakistan's intelligence agencies, none of which has stuck in court. After the death of his wife he marshalled the largest coalition in Pakistan's history and used it to peacefully unseat a military ruler, no small feat in a country that has seen four coups. So why is Zardari's reputation mud among his countrymen?
One reason is the contempt he has for civil society, particularly those that led the line against Musharraf: Pakistan's powerful lawyer community. In the last six months Zardari has three times sworn to restore the sacked judiciary, including the Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry. Three times he has gone back on his word.
For the lawyers it is now clear Zardari wants an independent judiciary as much as Musharraf, and for the same reason: both men fear the rule of law.
In Zardari's case the fear is that an independent justice would overturn an amnesty granted by Musharraf on corruption charges incurred during stints as minister in his wife's 1990s governments. The amnesty holds, but so do stigma of the charges.
On 25 August the British Financial Times unearthed court records filed by Zardari's doctors "as recently as 2007" that showed he was suffering from "severe psychiatric problems". Such ailments, said his doctors at the time, made him unfit to stand trial on the corruption charges. Government spokesmen today say their leader is "fit as a fiddle".
Due to the amnesty, on 28 August authorities in Switzerland said they were unfreezing Zardari's bank account of $60 million. Presidential challenger, Mushahid Hussein, has demanded Zardari declare the source of this wealth. The presidential hopeful has declined.
Finally, on 26 August the New York Times reported on "unauthorised contacts" between the PPP leader and United States United Nations Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, a man loathed in Pakistan not only for his role in the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq but also for visceral hostility to most things Pakistani. They don't include Zardari.
Will presidency wash away the stains? Asked his political priority, Zardari answered: "poverty alleviation, poverty alleviation, poverty alleviation". This is good news for Pakistanis, nearly 50 per cent of which are "food insecure", according to US surveys. But it is flouted by a government policy that is removing subsidies from staples and disproportionately hurts the poor.
Similarly Zardari has criticised the counterinsurgency polices adopted by the US and Pakistan after 9/11. "We need to do something better," he told the BBC on 24 August. For the last month -- under US pressure -- the Pakistan army has bombarded Taliban and Al-Qaeda "sanctuaries" on the Afghan border, an offensive that has so far left hundreds dead and 100,000s displaced. On 31 August the government announced a cessation of fire. This, it seems, was less for any military reason than as part of a trade that will see Islamic and tribal parties vote for Zardari for the presidency.
Is Zardari a statesman or operator? Pakistanis will mull this question in the run-up to the presidential poll, and beyond. There are some who hope Bhutto's heir may yet surprise them. There are many who fear he won't.
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