Zardari’s farewell and the future

By Elf Habib

The myth and magic of these contenders, however, are now fast fading, creating new curiosities about Zardari’s fate, future and fortunes The valedictory guard of honour, salutes by the smartly starched armed contingents, the feasts, flowers and formalities for Asif Zardari were really unprecedented in Pakistan as the first ever democratically elected civilian president departed after his stipulated tenure. Unprecedented equally was the saga of his success and survival despite the tempest of tirades, turbulence, contempt, criticism and conspiracies stirred by the media, opposition, superior judiciary, agencies and the establishment that invariably decide, dictate and manage most of the events and policies on this puritan soil of Pakistan. No less ruthless, at times, were some of his apparent allies like the MQM in extracting their pound of flesh by perpetrating the furore, fuss and ferment in Karachi. Unique and unprecedented actually was his entire span as the masses after a long devastating dictatorship wished that democracy would somehow deliver the dividends that they had dreamed of. Yet they were never guided to the galling reality that whatever the form of government and the party or the person steering it, the country could never muster adequate resources for them as they are mostly devoured by our obsession for defence, security and strategic depths in neighbouring lands, leaving us desperately dependent upon foreign favours and donations even for our elementary utilities and infrastructure. The media machine, rather than explicating this, concocted and propagated the perception that all our miseries were merely due to the mismanagement, corruption, impiety and incompetence of the ruling alliance led by Zardari. They ruthlessly blasted his planks and performance and nonchalantly promoted the contenders who promised piety, purity, honesty, efficiency, competence and miracles merely through their good governance. The myth and magic of these contenders, however, are now fast fading, creating new curiosities about Zardari’s fate, future and fortunes. It would be, for instance, really surprising to see if he would survive the forces that are inexorably sworn to ensure his nemesis. The prime suspense spawned by the dragnets gathering around him is whether he would stay here and fend them off or would rather prefer a firmer foreign pitch to face them the way his spouse often did. The superior judiciary in contrast to its palpably softer stance against the Mian brothers has been rather overtly strident against Zardari and a writ to bar his exit abroad under the pretext of the Abbottabad case has already been manoeuvred before it. The (politically) empty Imran Khan, known for his great fall from a crane, has proffered his cooperation to Nawaz Sharif if he could bring back the ‘plundered wealth’, evidently implying to rev up the case against the fabled five billion dollars Swiss stash. The return of this controversial bounty has defied the devices of Zardari’s tormentors, jailers and the wizardry of our pompous judicial and administrative protagonists for decades. But besides this tranche, there are claimed to be another 34 pages of cases pending against him. The cases on each page generally are not enumerated but if every page is assumed to contain one case and each in turn is to spread over five years, he would perhaps have to be a bicentennial wonder to settle these scrolls. Millions would wish him those eventful years and his opponents would also relish the fight. Zardari’s opponents are evidently over-intoxicated with pride and persistence to fight for futilities and can easily endure a few more decades digging for his elusive cache even if they have to splurge five times its worth on their pursuit. The fight, frivolities and the fireworks thus would undoubtedly keep following Zardari’s farewell. He himself as well as his legions like Jahangir Badr and Manzoor Wattoo have already revealed his resolve to stick around in Pakistan and reinvigorate his party that he is alleged to have ruined by scorching its real soul and spirit through his excessive interventions for reconciliation and appeasement verging often on retreats. The successive retreats evidently became too reeling to rebound and recharge. Not only his critics but even some enthusiasts of the PPP have reiterated that he must leave the reins of the party, restricting himself to behind the scenes operations, the way he often did when Benazir Bhutto blazed the trail. The background style was forced further by the strictures set by his status as the president and seems to have congealed as a norm. So how his slow, measured and restrained manner would be pitched against the rambunctious verbosity and antics of his opponents like Shahbaz Sharif, Imran Khan and piety-peddling pontiffs could be equally critical. So would be his transformation into a more accessible man of the masses, rushing around to reach them, infusing confidence in his policies and energising his workers. Zardari’s exposure and access similarly may be hampered by the terrorist threats that he miserably failed to flush out and that almost paralysed his party’s electioneering and prospects. Yet, notwithstanding these odds, there could certainly be a sunnier side to Zardari’s future as he also has some rare and unrivalled assets and avenues that can help him rise even with a low restrained profile. His three children beaming Benazir’s image and mantle can be groomed to garner a new vibrant vision to mesmerise and galvanise the youth. They can inspire a real futuristic vanguard as his adversaries merely strive to attract the youth without actually having any comparable youthful nucleus in their ranks. The new vision has to be on education, excellence, innovation and a symbiotic interaction with the advanced world and eschewing the contempt, confrontation and provocation against it. The PPP flaunting the cause of the masses similarly has to recast itself, making people and their problems as a real pivot of its policies. It must stress pragmatism, sharing the real truth and dictates of the present world with the people and dispelling the wild unattainable phantoms and passions fed to them by the puritan mullahs and militarist mindsets and now being rebranded by the ‘empty bottlers’. It must also guard them against the corporate fantasies and the trickle down dreams being spun by the Mian Brothers and their behemoth business mafia, the harrowing aftermath of which are writ large at several sites in Africa. This mission would verily entail a new course and covenant to ensure an effective and manifest care for the masses. The pervasive grouch against his party for doubling the unproductive allocations over five years while ignoring the worsening terrorism, energy crisis and inflation undoubtedly has to be relieved. Zardari’s forte to reassure and reconcile the masses would certainly seal his fate and the future.