President Asif Zardari is the first president in Pakistani history to complete a full five-year term in office. The irony is that if the real political leader of the PPP, Benazir Bhutto, hadn’t been assassinated, Mr Zardari might never have participated in Pakistani politics at all (third time round, she wanted him to stay away and look after the kids while she ruled Pakistan). A bigger irony is that he was able to match wits and get the better of all his political adversaries – especially head-hunting judges and generals – and live to fight another day after surviving the onslaughts of the NRO, Salala and Memogate. Indeed, the bonhomie is quite remarkable – the leader of the opposition and the prime minister are both hosting farewell receptions for Mr Zardari and he is hosting a presidential feast for the prime minister. All this is a far cry from the days when the opposition would shriek a president down during his annual parliamentary address and constantly conspire to oust him from office. Not for nothing, therefore, have friend and foe alike bestowed upon Mr Zardari an honorary PhD in politics.
For now, however, Mr Zardari might like to reflect on his legacy for Pakistan and its fledgling democracy. Far from witch-hunting his opponents in the opposition, media and judiciary, he bore their slings and arrows with a Cheshire cat’s grin. He voluntarily divested himself of the president’s Herculean powers under Article 58-2B in favour of the prime minister; he enabled the superior judges to become independent of parliament; he devolved many of the federal government’s powers to the provinces; he anointed the frontier as Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and created Gilgit-Baltistan; he established the notion of neutral and consensus caretaker governments and the Election Commission of Pakistan to oversee free and fair general elections; and so on. If he had chosen not to entertain such democratic ideals, our political system would certainly have been the poorer for it.
But the truth also is that Mr Zardari shipwrecked the economy at the altar of personal political survival. He chose two prime ministers not on the basis of any track record or potential for governance and public welfare but on the yardstick of loyalty. He didn’t much care how corrupt and incompetent they were and the fate to which they helped consign the PPP so long as they refused to cow down before the judges and generals who wanted to see the back of him. At the end of his five-year term, and by extension that of the PPP government, the economy has hit rock bottom, unemployment and public debt have doubled, poverty has increased, foreign investment has fled our shores, there is no energy to run homes and industries, terrorism has peaked, the country is isolated regionally and distrusted internationally, and Pakistanis are more alienated, frustrated, violent and apprehensive about their future than ever before.
Of course, it wasn’t inevitable that we would have to pay such a heavy toll for Mr Zardari’s political longevity. A different course of action might have yielded the same personal dividend for him without jamming the economy. For instance, if he had restored the judges instead of blocking and then provoking them to take up cudgels against the NRO, he might not have had to endure a long and vindictive campaign that sent the PPP government staggering from pillar to post and stymied all governance. For starters he wouldn’t have been compelled to betray the opposition by seeking the cover of the presidency to remain immune from prosecution – like Sonia Gandhi, he could have ruled from the sidelines. But the bonus would have come from the freedom to wield greater leverage in selecting his prime minister and cabinet, thereby controlling the fate of his party and government and the destiny of Pakistan. As it is, his party has been wiped out in all provinces except in rural Sindh where its standing is based on the dubious factor of sub-nationalist ethnicity rather than performance.
Mr Zardari’s political prospects are bleak. The PPP will be hard-pressed to keep the ship of provincial state steady as Karachi is buffeted by waves of terrorism and counter-terrorism operations that will strain political relations with all state and non-state actors. In particular, he should seek ways and means to revive the party in the Punjab when, inevitably, the PMLN falters on one count or another. Meanwhile, he would be advised to keep on the right side of Nawaz Sharif so that his flank is covered while he dodges the avenging judges.
Asif Zardari and Bilawal Bhutto didn’t see eye to eye on how to run the party and the government. But father and son must make amends. The PPP needs new blood, new inspiration and new ideas to mount an effective challenge to the PMLN. Above all, it needs Bilawal Bhutto to start where Benazir Bhutto left. Mr Zardari should now focus on ensuring that the mission of his martyred wife endures. – See more at: http://www.thefridaytimes.com/beta3/tft/article.php?issue=20130906&page=1#sthash.iYfPiiDY.dpuf