Zardari’s Election as President of Pakistan and the Dangerous Road Ahead

September 8, 2008 – 9:21 am

On September 6, the Pakistani people could sow the seeds of their own political destruction by electing Asif Ali Zardari, leader of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) as their new president. With just days left before the election, tension in Pakistan is mounting as sniper fire pierced the windows of PPP Prime Minister Yousef Galani’s motorcade. Since former President Musharraf’s forced resignation, the fragile anti-Musharraf coalition led by the PPP and the Pakistan Muslim League (N) has now been shattered. Pakistan’s complex array of political forces, the army, the ISI, religious extremists and foreign governments are all mobilizing for the political fray to come as Pakistan’s leadership crisis deepens.

In the aftermath of Benazir Bhutto’s assassination in November 2007, her husband, Asif Zardari seized control of the PPP and is riding the wave of outrage against ousted dictator Pervez Musharraf to power. A Zardari victory on September 6, will consolidate the presidency, a parliamentary majority, the prime minister’s office, the National Assembly Speaker’s chair and the judiciary under the PPP; making Pakistan a virtual one-party state.

Zardari’s presidential candidacy clearly violates the coalition agreement signed with the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (Pakistan ’s second largest party) and other paparty’s, stipulating that the next president would be non-partisan. He has dragged his feet on the coalition agreement to re-instate the judges dismissed during the Musharraf’s state of emergency, and back-tracked on the coalition agreement to rescind the president’s extra-constitutional powers to dissolve parliament and the judiciary; powers usurped by Musharraf under martial law. Thus, Zardari seeks to replace Pakistan’s brutal dictatorship with a more “enlightened” form of despotism.

Zadari’s power grab has the full backing of the Bush Administration and the army, which remains Pakistan’s most powerful institution. While Musharraf’s chosen successor, Army Chief of Staff Kayani has vowed to keep the military out of politics, Zardari has openly proclaimed “the establishment” is behind him. There can be little doubt that Musharraf, now resting comfortably in his suburban villa under the army’s protection, cut a deal with the United States, General Kayani, the Saudi’s and Zardari to resign as president if impeachment charges against him were dropped and he could remain in the country. In return, Kayani pledged the army’s loyalty to Zardari, but Musharraf is still pulling the strings behind the scenes.

Zardari’s betrayal of the democratic coalition was to be expected. He stepped into the political footprint of Benizer Bhutto who acquiesced to a power sharing arrangement with Musharraf and accommodation to the United States’ Pakistan agenda. But the political upsurge of millions of Pakistani’s led by the lawyer’s movement proved to be, and remains an obstacle to her successor Zardari’s rise to dynasty.

Zardari never wanted to enter a political alliance with the forces of democracy, but he had to. No sooner had the alliance served his purpose of getting rid of Musharraf, he broke all his commitments to the coalition. Zardari’s treachery left the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PLM-N) no choice but to quit the coalition. As the nation entered the final week before the elections, rumors swirled street that corruption charges against former Prime Minster Nawaz Shariff and PML-N leader, will be be reinstated; pouring more fuel on the smoldering fire. This kind of intimidation to opposition should be all to familiar to the Pakistani people. Meanwhile a power struggle has began over the Punjab, Pakistan’s most populous and politically powerful province. The PPP and PML-N are accusing each other of destabilizing the provincial government . The PML(N) carried the province in February’s parliamentary elections.

On the eve of the elections Pakistan’s political divide is clearly sharpening. Zardari has the support of the Awami National Party, pockets of Musharraf’s “Kings Party” (PML-Q) and provincial leaders of the NWFP and Balochistan. The lawyer’s movement, the BNP, and a number of smaller Muslim religious parties that accuse the PPP of selling out to the United States and want the judges restored are coalescing around Shariff’s PML-N. Shariff has also sought the support of the popular retired supreme court chief justice Saeed uz Zaman Siddiqui as his party’s presidential candidate.

While there is little doubt that Zardari will win the presidency, the breakup of Pakistan’s short lived democratic coalition will make the nation more vulnerable to the intrigues of the the army, the Inter Service Intelligence agency and the growing power of the Taliban-al Queda forces in the FATA and NWPF regions. If political chaos descends on Pakistan, the Army that has already led three coups will seize power and run the country with an iron fist and the United States’ blessing. Above all, the U.S. must have a trusted friend whose finger remains close to Pakistan’s nuclear button. Ironically, the British courts recently released Zardari’s 2007 physician’s reports that diagnosed him as suffering from severe psychiatric problems. The news of Zadari’s questionable mental state set off alarms in the situation room of the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.

Despite Zardari’s victory on September 6, he will not be able hold back the tide of Pakistan’s democratic upsurge. Ultimately, all the U.S. backing, money and military power cannot prevail against the peoples desire to rebuild a more just and free Pakistan.. It is a lesson Zardari should have, but didn’t learn over the past year from the heroic Pakistani people. His unwillingness to share power and build a broad united front to extend Pakistan’s unique experiment with democracy will be his undoing. The question is; When things fall apart in Pakistan, who will be there to pick up the pieces?