Adios Amigos!


Written by Javed Ansari • Region • December 2009

With the NRO gone, is it the end of the road for President Asif Ali Zardari? Every time President Asif Ali Zardari holds a high profile meeting at the President's House in Islamabad, the expectations of the media and the people, hit a high. It happened recently when the leader of Pakistan's ‘friendly opposition', Mian Nawaz Sharif went calling on the president. Nothing came off that meeting except an insipid statement to the press by PML-N stalwart Raja Zafarul Haq, saying the two leaders did not even once mention the three explosive letters - NRO. Obviously, since Nawaz Sharif is not an NRO beneficiary, he did not feel the need to bring up the matter at this meeting.

Again, the President, in his capacity as co-chairman of the PPP, invited the party's Central Executive Committee members to the President's House (and not to the party secretariat) to discuss some burning issues. The deliberations started after midnight and continued into the wee hours. Again, according to insiders, there was hardly any mention of the NRO, the law that hangs like a Sword of Damocles over the heads of many a party veteran.

The meeting had been convened apparently to chalk out a fire fighting strategy to tackle the NRO issue and its implications on certain party members once the ordinance lapsed on November 28. The PPP graph has certainly hit a new low following a series of debacles starting from restoration of the Chief Justice to the uproar over the Kerry-Lugar Bill, withdrawal of Governor's rule in Punjab and the party's decision not to be table the NRO Bill in the parliament. It is also a cause for worry for all concerned that since the acceptance rating of the president of Pakistan is down in the pits, there is need for a new image-building strategy to counter all those allegations of corruption and mis-governance against his person.

According to reports, besides a couple of dissenting voices, there was hardly anyone at the CEC meeting who brought up any controversial issue for discussion and it was mostly a marathon sycophancy session. It is, however, true that at no other time was Asif Ali Zardari's presidency threatened as seriously as it is now. He suffered two major political debacles in just six weeks and is now fighting a survival battle. He is also getting a hard time from the army though the only constitutional method to remove him from office is impeachment. However, in Pakistan, constitutional formalities are thrown to the winds when the need arises and it is usually extra-constitutional measures that deliver the goods. In this particular instance, it is being surmised that even certain ‘champions' of democracy and constitutionalism may support unconstitutional means after all, if the outcome would amount to saying goodbye to Asif Zardari. The other and more convenient option would be that Mr. Zardari either resigns or at least gives up the powers that he enjoys under the 17th Amendment - powers that he has inherited from former President Pervez Musharraf.

In a recent interaction with the press, Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani said that while he enjoys all powers of the chief executive of the country, President Zardari has offered to surrender powers vested in him under Article 58(2)b of the Constitution. When asked about his lack of powers to appoint services chiefs, Gilani said in a lighter mood: "I would like to get them."

It was the public pandemonium over the Kerry-Lugar Bill that actually upset the cart for Asif Zardari. In a very uncharacteristic move, the army put out a press release in which it expressed its serious displeasure over the text of the bill, particularly the clauses ‘impacting national sovereignty'. Some media pundits even said the KLB text had been altered on the personal intervention of President Zardari's henchman in Washington, Ambassador Hussain Haqqani.

While the nation was blowing hot and cold over KLB, the NRO raised its ugly head. This was a law that General Musharraf had promulgated to clear the way for Benazir Bhutto to walk into the Prime Minister's House, following general elections in the country. That was not to be. Benazir was brutally assassinated a few weeks before the elections while others benefited from the NRO, including her widower Asif Ali Zardari. He never looked back from then onwards and set about orchestrating everything so masterfully that it was nothing less than the position of Pakistan's head of state - and a powerful one at that - that he settled for.

Regretfully, Asif Ali Zardari has never enjoyed the kind of public adulation or party support that his charming wife did. He never interacts with the people in open forums or public meetings and is always ‘bunkered in'. In fact, he is more like a guest in his own country, since he is mostly globe-trotting, either on state visits or private trips. No head of the state of Pakistan before him has brought to the country's highest office the kind of baggage that he has. He has faced court cases for corruption and even murder and has spent 11 years in jail, though he has never been convicted on any of these charges. He has always said the cases were politically motivated. And while Zardari was able to return to Pakistan in late 2007 under the amnesty provided by the National Reconstruction Ordinance, in a new twist, the Supreme Court of Pakistan ruled in July, 2009, that the amnesty had to be approved by the national parliament. It set a 4-month deadline which expired on November 28, 2009.

The PPP government decided not to present the NRO in parliament after the opposition and some of its own coalition partners withdrew their support for the bill. The worry for Zardari is that since the umbrella of protection provided to him under the NRO does not exist anymore, he could again be dragged into the courts. His aides, however, say nothing will happen to him as he enjoys presidential immunity. However, some legal experts are of the view that Asif Zardari's qualifications as President are likely to be challenged if the cases against him are reopened.

Zardari‘s opponents are demanding that he be stripped of powers that he enjoys under the 17th Amendment. This includes the power to dismiss parliament and appoint chiefs of the armed forces. It is claimed by the president's inner circle that he is willing to give up the powers, which means they will be automatically transferred to the prime minister. So far, however, he has been dithering on this because he is probably afraid that he would be reduced to a figurehead president - like President Fazal Elahi Chaudhry in the days of Zulifikar Ali Bhutto's premiership or President Rafiq Tarrar in Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's second tenure.

In Pakistan's power game, it is the army that always has a role to play. It either acts upfront and takes the reins of government into its own hands or it operates from behind the scenes to ensure that those at the helm of affairs are behaving themselves. At this particular juncture, while the army is quite preoccupied with fighting the terrorists in Swat, Malakand and South Waziristan, it has an eye cocked at the happenings in Islamabad. The Chief of Army Staff, General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani may not have any political ambitions but, as PML-Q chief Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain quipped some time back, it only takes an army truck and two jeeps for a military takeover. This could, however, prove to be a worst-case scenario as no one is interested at this juncture in sinking the ship of Pakistan's fledgling democracy - neither the Pakistan Army, nor the United States.

What happens to the presidency of Asif Zardari then? The answer is that if his departure from the President's House becomes inevitable, it will most likely happen through constitutional means. It is possible that he would be replaced by another PPP stalwart - this time someone who enjoys the confidence of the entire party and not certain selected elements. As a further upshot of the NRO's demise, some key people in the federal cabinet and the administration may also have to pack their bags. This would obviously lead to a major cabinet reshuffle - a happening that may occur even before the NRO lapses - or soon after.

But it is good to see that President Zardari has loyal supporters in his party. At the midnight CEC meetingg, it is reported that, barring a couple of voices of dissent, most participants avoided discussion on controversial issues and preferred to praise President Zardari.

And Sharmila Faruqui, a PPP jiyali who makes an emphatic presence wherever she goes, writing in The News of November 14, in a piece titled ‘Mr president, we stand by you,' states:

"President Asif Ali Zardari is once again being maligned persistently without any justification. To be fair to him, he is not the author of the Kerry-Lugar Act and has not authored, drafted or imposed the NRO. Some vested interests seem to be after his job and his blood."

She is so right!