In the presidential election, Zardari garnered an overwhelming majority, securing 411 votes, while Achakzai managed to bag 181 votes, only one vote was rejected. To know more about the charismatic as well as mysterious character of Zardari read the details published in Dawn newspaper on February 23, 2024.
Even his rivals acknowledge that Zardari is a deal-maker par excellence. He has been written off and made a comeback so many times that his doubters have simply stopped trying.
You have heard the trope: Asif Ali Zardari is Machiavelli’s Il Principe personified. While that most certainly isn’t an endearment, it is perhaps not much of an insult either. Whether one accepts it or not, Zardari seems to have cracked the code to surviving and succeeding in the swampy wastelands of Pakistani politics. There are very few who can claim to have his guile, and none who can claim his political acumen.
Call it the politics of ‘mufahimat’ (understanding and reconciliation) or the politics of ‘mufadaat’ (interests and advantages), the Zardari brand of deal-making has ensured that his star continues to shine.
“Chaos isn’t a pit,” go the memorable lines from Game of Thrones, one of the most popular TV show of our times. “Chaos is a ladder. Many who try to climb it fail and never get to try again. The fall breaks them.”
“And some are given a chance to climb. They refuse, they cling to the realm or the gods or love. Illusions. Only the ladder is real. The climb is all there is.”
In the chaos of Pakistan’s politics, none has climbed the ladder higher or more successfully than Zardari. He has been thrown off again and again, yet refused to let his falls break him.
He has seized every opportunity to play the game, and won it with an unlikely hand too many times.
The young Zardari was a notorious playboy who often ended up in brawls at Karachi’s casinos. He was known for his then-famous father, Hakim Ali Zardari, who had been elected as an MNA on a PPP ticket to Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s first assembly.
The two were said to be close at one time, but fell out at some stage, following which the elder Zardari had exited the PPP. At one time, both father and son supported the anti-Bhutto alliance.
The Zardaris were otherwise regarded as a liberal Sindhi family who ran a successful entertainment business centred around their two cinemas. The son, at one point, had also tried his hand in the construction business, but was not successful.
The family’s name shot to national prominence when, through a common family connection, the Zardari scion’s marriage was arranged with Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s daughter and protégé, the late Benazir Bhutto. Benazir was well-loved and internationally known: it was natural for the spotlight to shine on her soon-to-be-husband. On the night of their wedding, the two celebrated with thousands of well-wishers, most of them common folk, at Lyari’s Kakri Ground.
The event seemed as political as it was personal, and it catapulted Zardari onto the national stage.
The very next year, in 1988, Ms Bhutto was elected Pakistan’s first woman prime minister. Zardari landed in Prime Minister House, and quickly went to work turning around his personal fortunes. It wasn’t long before Ms Bhutto’s first government was mired in scandals of all shades and sizes. It was during this time that Zardari earned the title of ‘Mr 10 percent’.
The axe would fall as soon as Ms Bhutto’s government was dismissed. Among the numerous cases filed against Zardari was one involving abduction for extortion. Zardari was accused of abducting a businessman, strapping a bomb to him, and sending him to the bank to withdraw a large sum of money from his account. The case ran in an anti-terrorism court between 1990 and 1993. Nothing ever came of it.
It was during Ms Bhutto’s next government that Zardari finally started being regarded as one of the most powerful men in the country. He got his own office within PM House, and was even made a federal minister. After that government was also dismissed, he was arrested immediately. A slew of new cases were filed against him, and Zardari once again found himself in jail. Once again, he was never convicted.
Zardari’s by then lengthy record and the length of time he had spent behind bars, without ever being convicted, added to his legend. He quickly came to be regarded as a shrewd wheeler-dealer who could get out of the stickiest situations without any fatal consequences.
It was Ms Bhutto’s tragic assassination that proved to be another turning point in Zardari’s fortunes. Though he had deferred to his spouse’s politics during her lifetime, the mantle of the PPP now fell to him.
His shrewd, calculating nature came to his aid, and benefit. Having decided that General Musharraf needed to go, Zardari played a cunning hand, using the army chief at the time to get Musharraf evicted from the presidency. No one at the time realized that Zardari actually wanted the job for himself.
The presidency solidified his grip on power. Although he buried Article 58(2)(b) of the Constitution as president, the PPP government continued to be run from the President House, with key decisions always in Zardari’s hands.
Although that term led to speculation that the PPP would be wiped out from nearly everywhere except Sindh, Zardari had prepared in advance with the 18th Amendment. It allowed him to keep a foot in the corridors of power while plotting his comeback for another time.
In recent years, with rival parties much larger than his own engaged in a long-running death match, Zardari did not take his eyes off the ladder.
After the 2024 elections, he has emerged as a kingmaker yet again. He has also managed to secure the maximum concessions for his own party (and himself), while giving very little to the PML-N in return.
Even
his fiercest rivals begrudgingly acknowledge that Zardari is a deal-maker par
excellence. He has been written off and made a comeback so many times that his
doubters have simply stopped trying.
They say that “the only thing certain in life is death and taxes”; in Pakistan, it might as well be “death, taxes, and Zardari’s political relevance”.
The man has been derided as a Machiavellian leader, a shrewd and cunning politician interested only in self-enrichment. Yet, he is also the first democratically elected president to serve out a five-year tenure, and likely to become the only person to have held that office twice.
No comments:
Post a Comment