Under a cloud, Zardari ready to lead Pakistan
By Jane Perlez Published: September 4, 2008
ISLAMABAD: Asif Ali Zardari, the widower of Benazir Bhutto, is set to become president Saturday, an accidental ascent for a man known more as a wheeler-dealer than as a leader. He will start his tenure burdened by a history of corruption allegations that cloud his reputation even as they remain unproven.
He has won the reluctant support of the Bush administration, which views him as a pliable partner in the campaign on terror. Still, Zardari will assume the presidency with what Washington and many here consider to be untested governing skills at a time when a tough Taliban insurgency threatens the very fabric of the nuclear-armed state of 160 million people.
It remains to be seen how forcefully he will act against militants in the face of Pakistani public opposition to American pressure. It is also unclear how much influence he exerts over the still-powerful military and the Inter-Services Intelligence agency.
The editor-in-chief of the Daily Times, Najam Sethi, a supporter of Zardari, said his elevation would suit the Americans. Zardari, he said, "will learn on the job." And indeed, Zardari, 53, has shown canny political skills as he moved in the last two weeks to outmaneuver his rival and former coalition partner, Nawaz Sharif.
But while the economy is in a downward spiral and foreign exchange reserves are perilously low, Zardari's reputation for using political perches to benefit himself and friends has left many here and in Washington worried about how he will restore economic confidence.
There are concerns about the oversight of a $15 billion package of nonmilitary assistance proposed by the Democratic vice presidential candidate, Senator Joseph Biden, and backed by the Bush administration.
Zardari declined to be interviewed for this article. The minister for information, Sherry Rehman, said it was too "sensitive" for Zardari to talk before the election, which was called after President Pervez Musharraf resigned on Aug. 18.
Pakistan has only $6 billion in foreign exchange reserves, disappearing at the rate of close to $2 billion every month to pay for oil and food. Several prominent economists and businessmen interviewed said much investor nervousness stems from mistrust of Zardari, who served as minister of investment in Bhutto's government when it was accused of demanding illicit payments in return for deals that exceeded the accepted levels of corruption in Pakistan.
Two recent decisions by Zardari showed a disregard for Pakistan's alarming deficits, they said, insisting on anonymity because they did not want to speak out publicly against the next president.
In April, Zardari told the then-finance minister, Ishaq Dar, that he wanted the price the government paid farmers for wheat to be raised substantially as a way of rewarding an important constituency in the province of Punjab, according to two participants in the discussion who feared repercussions if they used their names. The government would then have to heavily subsidize the cost of wheat to the consumer.
When Dar asked Zardari how he thought the government would pay for the subsidy, Zardari replied: "Print the notes," according to the two participants, a government official and an associate of Zardari's. In an effort to solve the impasse over the cost of the subsidy, it was suggested that Zardari form a committee of experts.
"I am the expert," Zardari said, according to his associate.
The two also described another incident in May as the budget was being prepared. Zardari decided to scrap a proposed capital gains tax after a visit from a group of influential stockbrokers from the Karachi stock exchange, they said.
The revenue from the capital gains tax and from an income levy tax proposal on the rich would have paid for an income support program for the poorest Pakistanis, they said. More than 50 percent of Pakistanis live on less than $2 a day, according to the World Bank.
In Zardari's defense, the finance minister, Naveed Qamar, said this week that political stability would be restored to Pakistan once Zardari was president and that the unsettled economy would benefit from the new political order.
Others were not so sure.
"Zardari will wield unprecedented power for a civilian president," said Maleeha Lodhi, who was appointed as Pakistan's ambassador to the United States by Bhutto and then by Musharraf. "But he may lack authority in view of his checkered and controversial past."
Washington is trying to persuade Pakistan to take a stronger stance against the militants who are using the northern tribal areas as a sanctuary to attack American and NATO forces in Afghanistan. Despite their reservations, American officials prefer Zardari to Sharif because they believe Zardari's Pakistan Peoples Party to be more secular and liberal than Sharif's party and more likely to confront militants.
Zardari has displayed a sudden willingness to take on the Taliban, saying last week that he would ban them and freeze their assets, a starting point strongly favored by the State Department, though it would have limited impact on the militants.
"Zardari is a businessman," said a Western diplomat. "He says to himself: 'I know I need American support. What do they want? They want this,"' meaning a stance against the Taliban.
But as Zardari moved to the fore, some of his efforts to please Washington have exposed his uneasy relationship with the military and Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, the powerful spy agency, whom he accused of assassinating his wife last December.
An effort to control the agency and impress the Bush administration failed in late July. Zardari and a senior official at the Interior Ministry, Rehman Malik, directed the prime minister's department to issue a public notification that the agency would report to the Interior Ministry; the military swiftly ordered the prime minister to retract the notice.
Washington has charged that the spy agency is involved in sabotaging American interests by supporting the Taliban in the tribal region.
"His first attempt to get control of the army and ISI was a total failure that showed a naivete about how the army and the ISI work," said Bruce Riedel, a former member of the National Security Council in the Clinton administration who is now advising the campaign of Senator Barack Obama on Pakistan.
Although Zardari will chair the body that has command and control over Pakistan's nuclear arsenal, in reality, the military has the day-to-day management of the weapons.
In the five months at the head of the governing coalition that collapsed after pushing Musharraf from power, Zardari filled key posts in the government with people he knew from jail and from his time in exile. He refused to reinstate the chief justice of the Supreme Court, who was removed by Musharraf. His opponents say he feared the chief justice might have reversed an amnesty that allowed Zardari's corruption cases to be dropped.
Zardari was in jail from 1990 to 1993 after Bhutto's first term and from 1996 to 2004 after her second term. He has always maintained that the corruption charges, and a murder charge, were politically motivated by forces trying to minimize his influence, and that he refused offers for early release from prison.
In Britain, Zardari faced a civil case brought by the Pakistani government in connection with a country manor in southern England. The government argued that Zardari paid for the property with ill-gotten gains. In order to win a delay in the British courts, Zardari filed affidavits in early 2006 from two doctors in New York saying he was mentally unable to assist his lawyers.
According to the affidavits, first reported by The Financial Times, Zardari, who was living at the time at an elegant apartment building in Manhattan, and who friends said appeared to be in good spirits, suffered from dementia, major depressive disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder.
The Pakistani high commissioner in London, Wajid Shamsul Hasan, who was recently appointed to the post by Zardari and is an old friend, said Zardari is now fit and well.
After the vote Saturday, he will live in the presidential palace, a white marble edifice in the center of the capital. There, behind the tall colonnades and long corridors, according to a close associate, he will have achieved three things he most covets.
As president he will have, according to the Constitution, immunity from prosecution. He will enjoy top security. And he will be provided with the rites of protocol that will allow him to appear on the world stage as a leader in his own right, and not just as the spouse of one.
hmm yeh we are complaining 
go and have another reality check man even combined the wealth of all the general in the history of Pakistan will not be equale to even 1/1000th of the loot and plunder by gunja Nawaz and thug zardari.
