“MR. 10%” ASIF ALI ZARDARI ELECTED AS 14TH PRESIDENT OF PAKISTAN

Sat 09 March 2024:

Asif Ali Zardari, the co-chairman of the center-left Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), was chosen by parliamentarians on Saturday to serve as the nation’s fourteenth president.

Zardari, 68, the widower of the two-time Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and the candidate of the ruling coalition, defeated Mahmood Khan Achakzai, a veteran politician from the southwestern Balochistan province, and a candidate of the opposition Sunni Ittehad Council, a religiopolitical group and new home to lawmakers belonging to jailed ex-Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party.

Some small political parties, including Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Fazal (JUI-F) and Jamaat-e-Islami, boycotted the election and no MP from these parties cast their votes.

The voting started at 10 a.m. local time (0500GMT) at the National Assembly building in Islamabad and all four provincial capitals and continued until 4 p.m. (1100GMT).

Zardari is the only politician elected to the country’s highest, yet symbolic, constitutional office for a second term.

He previously served as the president in 2008-2013 during the government of his own party.

Zardari was born in July 1955 to a Sindhi landlord family and received his early education at Saint Patrick’s School in Karachi, Pakistan’s commercial hub and the capital of southern Sindh province.

He graduated from Cadet College Pitaro, near Hyderabad, the second largest city of Sindh, and later studied business in London.

Although his father, Hakim Ali Zardari, was an active politician, he initially showed no interest in politics. Before becoming an avid polo player, junior Zardari appeared as a child star in a local film.

His betrothal to Benazir Bhutto, who had returned from self-exile in London in 1986, surprised many people in the country.

The two got married in 1987, which marked his entry into politics. The couple shared three children, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, Bakhtawar and Assefa.

His first government position was as environment minister during Benazir’s second term, which lasted from 1993 to 1996. He was also the minister of investment from 1995 to 1996.

His opponents dubbed him “Mr. 10%” and blamed him for the dismissal of Benazir’s two governments due to allegations of corruption.

Later, he served several jail terms from 1990 to 2004 in cases for crimes ranging from corruption to murder, money laundering, and kidnapping for ransom. None of the charges, however, has ever been proven in the courts.

Zardari has been elected as a member of the lower house, or the National Assembly, four times and once as a senator from 1990 to 2024. He resigned from parliament after being elected as president on Saturday.

In Benazir’s last years, Zardari remained out of politics and mostly stayed in the US, amid rumors of a strained relationship with his spouse. He also sought treatment for psychological distress caused by his years-long imprisonment, which had taken a toll on his physical and mental health.

He only returned to the country a few days after Benazir was assassinated at a rally in Rawalpindi, a garrison city in northeast Pakistan, in Dec. 2007.

Amid countrywide violent protests against Benazir’s assassination, Zardari immediately took reigns of the party, appointed Bilawal as chairman and himself co-chairman on the “pretext” of his spouse’s “will.”

Months after his party won the 2008 general elections, he was elected president, making him the de facto ruler of a country that practices parliamentary democracy, with the prime minister serving as the chief executive.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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