The man, the controversy, the resurrection: Zardari’s return as Pakistan’s president

Asif Ali Zardari has made history by being the only Pakistani political leader to be elected president for the second time. Often described as an accidental leader, the widower of assassinated former prime minister Benazir Bhutto is perhaps the most enigmatic politician in the country. For the past three decades, he has alternated between prison and power.

Zardari’s election as president for the second term illustrates the paradoxes of Pakistani politics. He has once again proved skeptics wrong who had been predicting the end of the road for him.

While his Pakistan Peoples’ Party (PPP) has extended support to the six parties’ coalition government led by prime minister Shahbaz Sharif, the party has decided not to join the cabinet. Past master of political wheeling and dealing Zardari has managed to extract the maximum price for his party’s support for the minority government. The PPP has emerged as the third largest party in the national assembly and its support is critical for the survival of the shacky administration.

Zardari’s return to the top constitutional office has come amid allegations of manipulation of the recently concluded parliamentary elections that have widened political polarization in the country. The latest decision of the Election Commission depriving the PTI-supported group of its share of reserved seats in the National Assembly has further vitiated the atmosphere.

The opposition has also raised questions over the legitimacy of the presidential election saying that the electoral college was incomplete. The electoral college for presidential election comprises members of both houses of the parliament and four provincial legislative assemblies.

Although the president doesn’t have any executive power he can still impact the country’s fragmented politics.

Zahid Hussain

Although the president doesn’t have any executive power he can still impact the country’s fragmented politics. Zardari’s presence in the presidency will certainly give a huge boost to the PPP. There are also strong possibilities of the party deciding to join the cabinet now that its leader is president.

Zardari took over the charge of the PPP after the assassination of his charismatic wife Benazir Bhutto in December 2007 and has proved to be a shrewd and crafty politician. Since taking on the mantle of leadership, he led the PPP to victory in the 2008 parliamentary elections and worked with former political foes to force military leader General Musharraf to step down.

His election as president that year marked the completion of a political resurrection for the man who has been thrust onto the center stage of Pakistani politics only a few months ago. It was an amazing reversal of fortune for the controversial widower, who had spent more than a decade in prison on murder, corruption and other criminal charges.

During Benazir Bhutto’s first tenure as prime minister, Zardari was widely accused of misusing his wife’s position to acquire wealth. He was one of the first persons to be arrested by the new government in 1990. He served two and a half years in prison and faced trial on over 200 charges ranging from kidnapping for ransom to defrauding banks to conspiring to kill political opponents, but none of the charges were substantiated during his long trial.

Zardari’s star rose again in 1992 soon after his release from jail on bail when he was sworn in as a federal minister in the interim government formed after the ouster of Nawaz Sharif’s government in 1993. Ironically, the oath was administered by none other than Ghulam Ishaq Khan, the former President who was responsible for sending him to jail.

Following the PPP’s victory in the 1993 elections, Zardari was back in the saddle — with all the controversies which marked the first Benazir Bhutto government. As a federal minister, Zardari in Benazir Bhutto’s second government was once again being accused of corruption and political manipulation.

He was arrested again on corruption charges after the ouster of Benazir Bhutto’s second government in November 1996. He was released in December 2004 after spending eight years in jail. He had spent a total of almost 11 years in prison — longer than any other Pakistani politician when he was elected president for the first time.

Soon after he bowed out of the presidency, Zardari found himself entangled in renewed legal battles. Most troubling for him was the fact that it was not only his fate hanging in the balance but some of his family members, including his sisters, were implicated on corruption charges.

But the crafty politician had the last laugh when his party joined hands with other opposition parties to oust Imran Khan’s government through a vote of no confidence in 2022. Subsequently, his party joined the coalition government and the cases against him were put in cold storage. In an ironic twist he is now back as the country’s president.

- Zahid Hussain is an award-winning journalist and author. He is a former scholar at Woodrow Wilson Centre and a visiting fellow at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, and at the Stimson Center in DC. He is author of Frontline Pakistan: The struggle with Militant Islam and The Scorpion’s tail: The relentless rise of Islamic militants in Pakistan. Frontline Pakistan was the book of the year (2007) by the WSJ. His latest book ‘No-Win War’ was published this year. Twitter: @hidhussain