Pakistan: The godfather as president
Asif Ali Zardari
He may be a pliant partner for the west, but with his record of corruption, Zardari is the worst possible choice for Pakistan
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- Tariq Ali
- guardian.co.uk,
- Sunday September 07 2008 09:35 BST
Asif Ali Zardari - singled out by fate to become Benazir Bhutto's husband and who, subsequently, did everything he could to prevent himself from being returned to obscurity - is about to become the new President of Pakistan. Oily-mouthed hangers-on, never in short supply in Pakistan, will orchestrate a few celebratory shows and the ready tongues of old cronies (some now appointed ambassadors to western capitals) will speak of how democracy has been enhanced. Zardari's close circle of friends, with whom he shared the spoils of power the last time around and who have remained loyal, refusing all inducements to turn state's evidence in the corrruption cases against him, will also be delighted. Small wonder then that definitions of democracy in Pakistan differ from person to person.
There will be no expressions of joy on the streets to mark the transference of power from a moth-eaten general to a worm-eaten politician. The affection felt in some quarters for the Bhutto family is non-transferable. If Benazir were still alive, Zardari would not have been given any official post. She had been considering two other senior politicians for the presidency. Had she been more democratically inclined she would never have treated her political party so scornfully, reducing it to the status of a family heirloom, bequeathed to her son, with her husband as the regent till the boy came of age.
This, and this alone, has aided Zardari's rise to the top. He was disliked by many of his wife's closest supporters in the People's Party (or the Bhutto Family Party, as it is referred to by disaffected members) even when she was alive. They blamed his greed and godfatherish behaviour to explain her fall from power on two previous occasions, which I always thought was slightly unfair. She knew. It was a joint enterprise. She was never one to regard politics alone as the consuming passion of her life and always envied the lifestyle and social behaviour of the very rich. And he was shameless in his endeavours to achieve that status.
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