Asif Ali Zardari is expected to be sworn in on Sunday.
Islamabad, Pakistan:
Asif Ali Zardari, the widower of Pakistan’s slain first female prime minister Benazir Bhutto, was elected president for a second time on Saturday in a life marked by tragedy and farce.
Mr. Zardari, initially a background figure as Mr. Bhutto’s consort, was tainted by a series of corruption and other charges, including a bizarre kidnapping plot and receiving massive jewelry kickbacks.
Despite his reputation as “Mr Ten Percent” – who allegedly received commissions for rubber-stamping contracts – sympathy votes pushed him out when his wife was assassinated in a bomb and gun attack in 2007 Went to the office.
The 68-year-old president will lead a largely ceremonial post in his second term after he initiated constitutional reforms between 2008 and 2013 that removed presidential powers.
He has spent more than 11 years in prison, a long time even by the standards of Pakistani politicians, but he has a talent for making comebacks after scandals.
Back in 2009, The New York Times described him as having a knack for “dodges”—“finding ways to get yourself out of the messes you get yourself into.”
Newly sworn-in national and provincial lawmakers and senators voted for him under the terms of a coalition agreement struck after the Feb. 8 election that was marred by accusations of rigging.
Under the deal, Zardari’s Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) assumed the presidency, while its historic rival Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) secured Shehbaz Sharif, who was formally sworn in on Monday. Prime Ministership.
Zardari is expected to be sworn in on Sunday.
“Polo Playboy”
Mr. Zardari was born in 1955 in the southern province of Sindh to a family of landowners.
“As a child, as an only child, I was spoiled by my parents,” he told The Guardian in 2000. “They accommodated my every whim.”
As a young man he expressed only limited political ambitions – and was defeated in the 1983 local government elections.
His arranged marriage to PPP leader Bhutto in 1987 earned him a place in the political spotlight.
Their union, brokered by Bhutto’s mother, was considered an unlikely match for a leader-elect from one of Pakistan’s major political dynasties.
An Oxford and Harvard graduate, Bhutto’s desire was to overthrow then-President Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq, who forced her father out of the prime minister’s office and executed him.
Zardari was a college dropout known for bickering, partying and romping with women at his family’s private discotheque.
On the eve of the wedding, Bhutto’s team issued a formal statement denying that he was “a playboy who played polo during the day and frequented discotheques at night.”
Their wedding celebrations, dubbed the “people’s wedding”, also doubled as a political rally in the big city of Karachi, with 100,000 people enthusiastically chanting PPP slogans.
Initially, Mr. Zardari promised to stay out of politics.
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Bhutto served as Prime Minister from 1988 to 1990, the first woman in a Muslim country to lead a democratic government, and again from 1993 to 1996.
People within the PPP consider Mr Zardari a liability and believe he could embarrass her leadership.
Their concerns may be well founded. In 1990, he was accused of a bizarre plot to extort money by tying bombs to a businessman’s legs.
He was sentenced to three years in prison for extortion and kidnapping, but was elected to the National Assembly while in prison.
Bhutto served as Investment Minister during his second term.
An explosive New York Times investigation detailed how he tried to score huge kickbacks on military contracts while squandering large sums of money on jewelry during this period.
After the fall of Bhutto’s government in 1996, Mr. Zardari was back in jail within half an hour.
Accidental President
In December 2007, Bhutto was assassinated while running for a third term.
Her murder shocked the country, and a wave of sympathy carried the PPP to victory in 2008. The party nominated Mr. Zardari for president.
He was widely criticized for continuing his holiday in Europe in 2010, when the country was devastated by floods that killed nearly 1,800 people and affected 21 million.
He was still head of state in 2011 when U.S. commandos invaded Pakistani territory and assassinated Osama bin Laden, an incident that humiliated many of his compatriots.
He did, however, initiate constitutional reforms that removed the president’s sweeping powers and strengthened parliamentary democracy that had been undermined by three decades of military rule since 1947.
In 2013, Zardari became the first Pakistani president to complete his term.
He was jailed again in 2019 on money laundering charges but was released months later.
Mr. Zardari and Benazir have three children, including Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, the current chairman of the PPP.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
