The widower’s might

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Sep 11th 2008 | LAHORE
From The Economist print edition

Beset by problems, the new president seems alarmingly undaunted

AP
REVILED as “Mr 10%” for his alleged profiteering when his late wife, Benazir Bhutto, was prime minister of Pakistan, Asif Zardari was promoted this week by one newspaper to “Mr 100%”. That referred to the unanimous vote he received in the indirect presidential election on September 6th in the assembly in Sindh, his home province. But it could have meant the formidable powers Mr Zardari now enjoys—greater than any civilian president before him. Never convicted of corruption, Mr Zardari nevertheless spent eight years in prison. His wife was murdered last December. “Democracy”, he said after his swearing-in on September 9th, “is the best revenge.” He was quoting her.

Overall he had won 70% of the votes in the four provincial assemblies and two houses of parliament. This testified to his political skill in forging three provincial coalitions and a federal government, while enjoying a majority only in Sindh. Full-throated roars of “Long live Benazir!” shook the august halls of the presidency.

Last month Mr Zardari joined forces with Nawaz Sharif, a former prime minister, to hound Pervez Musharraf from the presidency. But Mr Zardari soon reneged on pledges to restore the deposed chief justice, and to amend the constitution to divest the presidency of the extraordinary powers accrued to it by Mr Musharraf. He now has the power to appoint and sack the three service chiefs, the chief election commissioner, provincial governors, prime minister and parliament. He will chair the powerful National Security Council. With a puppet prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, from his Pakistan People’s Party, Mr Zardari is poised to lord it over Pakistan.

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Shrewdly, Mr Zardari invited Afghanistan’s president, Hamid Karzai, to his oath- taking ceremony in Islamabad, to discuss future co-operation. The two have planned a joint tribal jirga, or conference, next month to tackle terrorism. Later this month President Zardari will meet senior American officials when he leads Pakistan’s delegation to the United Nations General Assembly session in New York.

Of all the difficulties Mr Zardari faces, perhaps the biggest is staying on the right side of Pakistan’s army. The generals make no bones about it: they neither like nor trust the president. And they do not share America’s view of the “war on terror”. They prefer to “contain” the Afghan Taliban, seeing these predominantly ethnic-Pushtun militants as potential pro-Pakistan “assets” in the future, rather than lump them with al-Qaeda and wage all-out war on both. The war is deeply unpopular, and Mr Zardari seems to face an impossible task in assuaging public opinion and overcoming military reluctance while fending off American impatience. “I’ll try to keep one pace ahead of all my critics,” he quips confidently. Unless, of course, he trips up himself, or someone trips him.

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George Bush congratulated Mr Zardari on his victory with a terse statement telling Pakistan not to shirk its responsibility to the international community by diluting its will to fight the war on terror. To drive the point home, American forces in Afghanistan have recently launched air strikes against suspected terrorist hide-outs in the tribal areas of Pakistan that border Afghanistan, provoking outrage. After one recent strike in North Waziristan killed civilians rather than Taliban fighters, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, General Tariq Majeed, issued an unprecedentedly stern warning that Pakistan could strike back at intruders. The federal parliament is bristling with resentment. To appease public opinion, the governor of the North-West Frontier Province, Owais Ghani, briefly froze the flow of hundreds of container-lorries laden with fuel and munitions for NATO forces in Kabul through the Khyber Pass.

Mr Zardari knows the danger of souring relations with America, Pakistan’s biggest donor. Since 2001 America has deferred billions of dollars of Pakistani debt repayments and dished out more than $12 billion in aid, mostly for the army. Now Congress is to consider a bill to give Pakistan another $1.5 billion a year for ten years for economic and social development.