But Zardari has no qualms about taking on political role in Pakistan in the wake of wife’s assassination
January 04, 2008
Sonya Fatah
THE TORONTO STAR
NAUDERO, Pakistan–A constant stream of visitors filled the large conference room of the Bhutto mansion, as delegations of religious, political, legal and other groups offered their condolences to the husband of assassinated political leader Benazir Bhutto.
Dressed entirely in black, Asif Ali Zardari fielded phone calls, meetings with members of the opposition Pakistan Peoples Party and television interviews, bounding back and forth between condolence callers and official business.
Zardari, the party’s new co-chairman, sat with each delegation, put his hands together and prayed with them beneath a portrait of his late father-in-law, former prime minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto.
The visual is a reminder that Zardari, until recently not even a player on the political scene, is now on Bhutto territory. As the successor to the woman who drew vast numbers to her election rallies and to her political message, he has been left with some big shoes to fill.
Zardari doesn’t think that’s a problem. Indeed, he has no qualms about projecting himself as a politician in the aftermath of his wife’s death. Even as a Zardari, we are all Bhuttos here, he told the Star.
“I am not letting the nation go into the hands of the people who want to break the country,” he said, underlining his determination to go on carrying the Bhutto torch. “We have to take it to a democracy, that’s the vision she gave her life for.”
How exactly Zardari will do that remains to be seen.
The PPP had hoped to win a handsome victory in the Jan. 8 elections, partially riding on a national wave of sympathy since Bhutto’s Dec. 27 assassination at a public rally in Rawalpindi.
But now that the election has been delayed until Feb. 18, in the wake of Bhutto’s death, things may change.
“In our neighbourhood when Indiraji (Indira Gandhi) died, 20,000 people were killed but the elections were not postponed,” said Zardari, bringing up similar periods from Indian history.
“When Rajiv (Gandhi) died, scores of places were burnt but elections were not postponed. But unfortunately we have uneducated, non-political brains running the country. They do not know the difference, the far effects it can have on the country. They do not know how nation-building is done, how nations fractured are put together again.”
Zardari’s immediate challenge will be to mount an election campaign that can continue Bhutto’s momentum, and ensure that a free and fair vote takes place.
The chances of the latter, he admitted, are slim.
“They have tried to rig the elections, they haven’t given that up,” he said.
“Even now, the Killer league, as my workers call it, are (trying to rig the elections),” said Zardari, referring to the country’s ruling party, the Pakistan Muslim League (Quaid-e-Azam). That party is made up of defectors from the opposition Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), which is seen as a pro-establishment party.
After the Oct. 18 suicide bombing at Bhutto’s homecoming parade in which 150 people were killed, Zardari accused key figures in the country’s establishment of being behind the attack. Nothing has yet come of the government’s probe into the incident but the PPP has insisted there is a vendetta to either fracture or destroy the party.
Although the government enlisted the assistance of Scotland Yard in the investigation on Bhutto’s assassination, Zardari has said an international probe will only be accepted if it is under the auspices of the United Nations.
With much of the preliminary and on-site forensic evidence lost because the government hosed down the site, Zardari said he wanted an international team to highlight the long-term conspiracy against the PPP.
“Because it’s a larger conspiracy than just that one incident so I want the whole conspiracy unearthed,” he said. “We’re not interested in just that incident or just that day. That is captured on tape.”
Conspiracies aside, Zardari will have to deal with issues relating to his legitimacy. As party-co chair, his son, 19-year-old Bilawal, will remain inactive in politics until he completes his studies at Britain’s Oxford university.
Zardari said people in the ruling party have already started badmouthing him and the PPP.
“Instead of being sombre, instead of shutting up, keeping quiet, letting the nation mourn, they’ve been trying to badmouth us.”
Indeed, Zardari should be used to unkind words. He has been known for years in Pakistan as “Mr. 10 Per Cent” because of a number of corruption allegations.
The son of a Sindhi landowner, Zardari grew up in Karachi and married Bhutto in 1987.
He spent eight years in jail on corruption charges and was released in 2004 after negotiations between the PPP and the government of Pervez Musharraf.
Since then, he has kept a low profile maintaining homes in Dubai and New York.
Bhutto had always insisted the corruption charges against her and her husband were politically motivated.
Writing about the ups and downs of a political marriage, Bhutto once penned her appreciation of Zardari in a piece for Outlook India.
“I’m lucky that my husband Asif is a man of exceptional courage,” she wrote.
“He stood by me despite the threats and the torture – and the inducement that were he to leave me he would be free of state harassment. Few men have been called upon to pay the price that he has paid both for his political commitment and marriage.”
For Zardari, maintaining his wife’s legacy is a big task.
Many don’t consider him to be the legitimate heir of the Bhutto political dynasty but rather a troublemaker who gave more grief than happiness to Bhutto.
Part of Zardari’s problem is that he lacks the Bhutto name. Shortly after the central committee of the PPP met to announce its new co-chairmen, it also announced that Bhutto’s son Bilawal Zardari would be renamed Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, a change signalling the importance of the Bhutto name.
Zardari, too, understands what is in the Bhutto name.
“I don’t think anybody is a Zardari or a Magsi or Khokar or anybody in the Peoples party,” he said when asked if he felt uncomfortable as a Zardari in Bhutto clothing. “They’re all Bhuttos.”
Popularity: 3% [?]
