‘Victory for Democracy’

As expected Asif Ali Zardari, Benazir Bhutto's widower, was elected president of Pakistan Saturday by a landslide, winning nearly 70 percent of the votes cast. His cheering supporters hailed it as a "victory for democracy." He never faced any serious competition from the two other candidates, one representing Zardari's erstwhile coalition partner, former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, the other the routed party of former President Pervez Musharraf. Zardari's election marks a dramatic reversal of fortune for the 53-year-old former playboy and polo player who wed Bhutto in a family-arranged marriage in 1987. Before Bhutto was assassinated last December while campaigning in the general election, Zardari's role seemed to be confined to taking care of their two younger daughters in Dubai, their 19-year-old son in London, and playing a secondary political role at best. Her death, last February's election victory of the Pakistan People's Party of which he is now co-chairman, and his own shrewd politicking have catapulted him into the presidency. He is being sworn into office Saturday as Pakistan's most powerful, and its most controversial, president in the country's 61-year history.

Pakistanis are now wondering what he will do with those extraordinary powers. The country is facing a near economic meltdown and a runway Islamic insurgency. Just before the vote a suicide bomber killed 16 Pakistanis in an attack on a police post in the northwestern city of Peshawar. Indeed, some Pakistanis doubt that he is up to the enormous task before him, largely because of his dubious past. Zardari spent more than 11 years in jail on a slew of corruption charges involving tens of millions of dollars and prime real estate deals. As a minister in his wife's government he had earned the unflattering sobriquet of Mr. Ten Percent from the alleged commissions he demanded on government contracts. But he was never convicted of the allegations that have now been dismissed, and which he says were politically motivated.

As president, Zardari holds near dictatorial clout. He is commander-in-chief of the powerful armed forces that have ruled the country for more than 30 years—since the country's independence from Britain. He is the custodian of the country's growing nuclear arsenal. He has the power to appoint all three military service chiefs, including the powerful army chief-of-staff, and to dissolve parliament. He handpicked the prime minister, Yousuf Raza Gilani, and his PPP is the dominant party in parliament.

Musharraf enjoyed all of those powers but he lacked the political legitimacy and the strong, nationwide political base that Zardari now has. Zardari, who never attended university, cleverly engineered his election by garnering the support of smaller regional parties from the three provinces that largely felt left out of the nation's power structure: Sindh (his and Bhutto's homeland), Baluchistan and the Northwest Frontier Province. In the past political power usually flowed from the Punjab, the country's most populous and prosperous province, and home to most of the armed forces' top officers. By cobbling together these regional alliances outside Punjab, he not only won the election but he also gained the nationwide political support that former President Musharraf never had.

Zardari needs all the political clout he can get to face the country's daunting challenges. The once high-growth economy is seriously ill and not far from needed life-support. Inflation is raging at 25 percent, foreign exchange reserves are hemorrhaging, the stock market has lost 40 percent of its capitalization over the past few months, capital is fleeing, foreign investment has dried up, business confidence is shaken, and there are serious electricity shortages. Al Qaeda-linked Islamic extremists have become increasing aggressive and bent on expanding their influence even beyond the tribal agencies along the Afghanistan border where they have enjoyed relative safe havens. Over the past six months Gilani's rather rudderless government seems to have been incapable of dealing with these mounting problems.

There is a bright side, however. Over the past few months Zardari has proved himself to be an extremely capable and daring politician. He sacrificed his shaky coalition with Sharif to reach the presidency, once their marriage of convenience successfully forced Musharraf to resign early last month. That done, Zardari refused to follow through on two political promises to Sharif: to restore the Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, and to nominate a joint, non-partisan presidential candidate. Zardari, it seems, never planned to do either. In a pique, Sharif withdrew his PML-N party from the coalition to sit in opposition. But Zardari was secure. He had done his homework and knew he had the numbers to be elected president in the indirect election in which the electors are the members of parliament and the four provincial assemblies. "He outmaneuvered everyone," says pro-Sharif MP and political columnist, Ayaz Amir. "He has run rings around the PML-N."