Breaking up is easy to do

tauringhuang.

Aug 27th 2008 | LAHORE
From Economist.com

Pakistan's government splits; its probable next president, Asif Zardari, is said to be ill


APALWAYS incredible, Pakistan’s governing coalition sundered on Monday August 25th when its second biggest component, the Pakistan Muslim League (N) walked out. Nawaz Sharif, the PML(N)’s leader, objected, among other things, to Asif Zardari, who leads the coalition’s main member, the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), making himself a candidate for a presidential election due on September 6th.

With its other smaller allies, the PPP-led government will not fold. And if Mr Zardari is elected president, with the dictatorial powers that the job confers, as seems likely, the government will look more solid. If so, Mr Zardari might be seen to have bested both Pervez Musharraf, the former president, who resigned on August 19th to escape impeachment, and Mr Sharif, leader of the PPP’s biggest rival. For a man who recently stepped into the shoes of his dead wife, Benazir Bhutto, the PPP’s murdered leader, and who is reported to have serious mental illnesses, this would be an Olympian achievement.

Given a historic rivalry between them, the PPP and PML(N) always looked likely to split. But this is still a blow to a country badly in need of the political stability and co-operation that they had promised. Pakistan is facing an ever-worsening Taliban insurgency and an economy in crisis.

Alas, if anyone can stop the rot, it is surely not Mr Zardari. He is among Pakistan’s most discredited politicians, having been accused of extortion and corruption on a huge scale during Ms Bhutto’s two terms in power during the 1990s. He received a controversial amnesty from these charges last year, at a time when Mr Musharraf, was considering recruiting the PPP as an ally. And he faces allegations that he is mentally unfit: on Tuesday August 26th a British newspaper, the Financial Times, suggested that Mr Zardari had been treated for illnesses including dementia and depression, which he had developed during eight years spent in jail on corruption charges.

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It is therefore alarming that Mr Zardari appears set to become an extraordinarily powerful president. If elected to the job, he assumes the swollen powers Mr Musharraf grabbed for the post: which would, for example, allow him to dissolve parliament on a whim. And he will also control the government, through his role as the PPP’s leader. Mr Zardari has promised to divest the presidency of its dictatorial powers after he is elected. But on recent form, his word is not worth much.

Crucial to the PML(N)’s alliance with the PPP was Mr Zardari’s promise to restore some 60 judges who were sacked last November by Mr Musharraf during a state of emergency. Mr Sharif, who returned from a seven-year exile last year, has made their restoration his most urgent policy objective. He has already profited from this (apparently principled) demand: opinion polls suggest he is Pakistan’s most popular politician and his support is surging.

He hopes to profit more: Mr Sharif needs some grateful judges to overturn a ban on his candidacy for election. This owes to his criminal record, including a conviction for hijacking incurred soon after Mr Musharraf toppled him in a coup in 1999. But Mr Zardari is reluctant to reinstall the deposed judges. Many Pakistanis believe this is because he fears they might reconsider the legality of his amnesty.

Mr Zardari has implored Mr Sharif to return to the government. But it is more likely that the two parties will resume their damaging habit of undermining each other by any means.

To shore up his strength, Mr Sharif will try to woo the support of Mr Musharraf’s erstwhile allies, the Pakistan Muslim League (Q), whose members were mostly recruited from his own party after the 1999 coup. For its part, the PPP will consider withdrawing from the coalition government that Mr Sharif’s party leads in Punjab, Pakistan’s richest province, leaving it with a minority in the assembly there. In the 1990s, when Mr Sharif and Ms Bhutto alternated in power, such manoeuvring, viciously pursued, made Pakistan almost as unstable as it is now. Ultimately, this led to the army’s takeover, as, in Pakistan’s history, political instability always has done.