Bhutto's widow nominates for president
Updated
Personality politics has taken a new turn in Pakistan - with the widow of Benazir Bhutto, Asif Ali Zardari, nominated as a presidential candidate.
Mr Zardari has been put forward by the Pakistan People's Party as its nominee, to take over from Pervez Musharraf, who resigned last week. And Mr Zardari says he's confident he'll have the numbers, when parliament and Pakistan's four provincial assemblies elect the new president on September the 6th.
Presenter: Corinne Podger
Speaker: MJ Gohel at the Asia Pacific Foundation
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GOHEL: Asif Zardari, Benazir Bhutto's husband, has led a very colourful past. He's been polo-playing playboy. He was involved or accused of being involved in the killing of Benazir Bhutto's brother. In a very famous case in 1990, he was accused of tying a remote-controlled bomb to the leg of a UK-based Pakistani businessman and sending the businessman into a bank to withdraw money, from his account as a pay-off. This is a man who has been in and out of jail, and in fact the Truth authorities have just recently announced that they may charge him with money laundering. So Zardari is somebody who was not actually going to be involved in politics, but the assassination of his wife, Benazir, has brought him onto the public scene.
PODGER: Indeed, such was his reputation for corruption, he was regarded as a political liability for his wife, Benazir Bhutto. Why is the party putting his name forward and why not, for example, put forward his son?
GOHEL: Well, when Benazir Bhutto was assassinated, the party needed a figure under which the party could unite. Also let's not forget that Zardari controls a huge sum of money which the party desperately needs. Now technically, they have made Benazir Bhutto's son, Bilawal, the head of the PPP, but he's a very young man who is still studying for a degree in the UK, and he's completely untried and untested for Pakistani politics. So Zardari is now going to take part in politics and become the president there, and one presumes at some point in the future, his son Bilawal will come in and then become prime ministe. But for the moment, it looks like Zardari will become a very powerful president in Pakistan, for the simple reason that Musharraf vested the powers of a dictator into the office of the president with the 17th constitutional amendment and now Zardari is going to benefit from the enormous powers that Musharraf had put inside the office of the president.
PODGER: What response has there been to the nomination from Mr Zardari's Coalition partner, Nawaz Sharif, and for that matter, from the Pakistan army, which more or less stood by and let Mr Musharraf step down last week?
GOHEL: Well, let's not forget that former prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, was the first one to jail Zardari in the past and the two of them really do not like each other, but they were united together because of their common hatred of General Pervez Musharraf. Now that Musharraf is out of the picture, the tensions are beginning to show. In particular, the 60-plus judges that Musharraf had sacked, Nawaz Sharif wants them reinstated. Zardari does not want them reinstated, because he's afraid that those judges will reinstate the corruption charges against him and remove the amnesty which Musharraf had given to him. So it looks like the coalition between Nawaz Sharif and Zardari is now likely to breakdown, but Zardari is not concerned about that, because he feels that he has enough support to become the president and in fact Nawaz Sharif could be left out in the cold.
Then the question arises, what will the military do? And the military at the moment is staying on the sidelines purely because it's under pressure from Washington not to become involved in another military coup, and the Pakistani military is entirely dependent on the financial support, as well as military supplies, from Washington. So at the moment, it appears that Zardari has a clear run into the presidency.
PODGER: You mention Western support, and on Sunday, Mr Zardari said the battle against the Taliban in Pakistan is being lost, notably he said the world, not just Pakistan, was losing that war, and that the whole world would be affected by the outcome. Was that a plea for continued Western support?
GOHEL: This was a very clever move by Zardari to point out the fact that the Pakistani Taliban has now become a very dangerous element. It is launching raids on Hamid Karzai's government in Afghanistan. There is also the US-led coalition there. Indeed, these statements by Zardari will ensure that Washington looks upon him kindly. Because of this move by Zardari, he's ensured that Washington will keep the pressure on the Pakistani military not to intervene.
