Zardari eyes political comeback after stepping down from presidency

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Zardari eyes political comeback after stepping down from presidency

By Muhammad Tahir (Xinhua) 20:16, September 09, 2013

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Former President Asif Ali Zardari has vowed to revive his political career a few hours after formally stepping down from the presidency when his constitutionally-mandated five-year term ended Sunday.

Zardari spoke to thousands of his supporters in the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) in the eastern city of Lahore to formally resume political activities. Lahore is the stronghold of his political rival, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif of the Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N).

In his first speech after leaving the presidency, Zardari told Sharif that he will support government efforts in achieving reconciliation in the country and in the fight against terrorism and violence.

"I will fully participate in the politics of the country and will remain in contact with the masses," the former president told his party-mates in Islamabad.

The courts had barred Zardari from active politics when he was president of the country. But now that he is out of the presidency, he is free to play an active role in politics, according to legal experts.

The day before he stepped down, Zardari said that he would not seek the Office of the Prime Minister but will remain focused in strengthening the PPP, which is now the minority party.

The PPP suffered a crushing defeat in the country's three of four provinces and the party leaders said lack of leadership was one of the reasons of the defeat in the May 11 general elections. The PPP succeeded to form government only in southern Sindh province, which is considered as the only stronghold of the party.

Zardari had been the co-chairman of the PPP since the assassination of his spouse, Benazir Bhutto, in 2007 and his son, Bilawal Bhutto, assumed the leadership of the party. However, Zardari was the man who actually run the party during the five year rule of the PPP since Bilawal was studying in Oxford and could not play an active role due to security threats to his life.

Although Bilawal remains chairman of the PPP as a symbol of the Bhutto clan, he will just be a figurehead because his father would attend to the day-to-day affairs of the party.

In a luncheon he hosted for Zardari last week, Prime Minister Sharif praised the former president for stepping down peacefully and in promising to cooperate with the government. Most Pakistanis, who have been subjected to too much politicking bickering in the past also commended the statesmanlike gesture of Zardari.

Zardari was elected president in 2008 after then military President Pervez Musharraf resigned after fearing a parliamentary impeachment.

During his five-year term, Zardari encountered major challenges but he followed the policy of reconciliation with his political opponents which led to the completion of a five-year term by a president for the first time in Pakistan's political history.

His political opponents had charged Zardari with corruption and alleged that he transferred huge amount of money to Swiss banks. After his opponents filed the corruption cases in the Supreme Court, Zardari and his government had been at odds with the judiciary.

The Zardari government has in fact refused to implement the court's order for it to write to the Swiss authorities to reopen the graft cases against Zardari.

The apex court disqualified Yusuf Raza Gilani as Prime Minister after he refused to write to Swiss authorities. Raja Pervez Ashraf, who was elected Prime Minister after Gilani's removal, accepted the court's order and sent a letter to Swiss authorities.

The Zardari government was also bedeviled by deadly attacks by the militant Taliban that left thousands of civilians and security forces dead. Zardari failed to resolve the problem with the Taliban, and now the hot potato has been passed down to Sharif.

During the term of the PPP-led government, Pakistan also suffered the worst power shortage that caused the country's economy to suffer tremendously.

It was only during the latter part of his term that Zardari took a bold decision to finalize a deal with Iran on the multi- billion gas pipeline project despite strong opposition by the United States.

Relations with the U.S. had been tense over several issues including the unilateral American military raid that had killed Osama bin Laden.

Afghanistan had also been a headache for Zardari's government as efforts for reconciliation with the Afghan Taliban could not be achieved despite Islamabad's commitment to helping in bringing the Taliban to the negotiation table.

His government, however, succeeded in initiating a dialogue with India following tensions over the Mumbai attacks that had brought the two rival countries into the brink of another war.