Bhutto widower poised for Pakistan's presidency

Asif Zardari, the controversial widower of the slain former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, will this week file his nomination papers to become Pakistan's next president, pushing the fragile coalition government further towards collapse. He is almost certain to be the next incumbent of the presidential palace in Islamabad, as his Pakistan People's party (PPP) has the required votes in parliament to get him elected, replacing Pervez Musharraf, who was ousted last week and who had kept Zardari in prison for years. Nawaz Sharif, leader of the other major party in the coalition, is furious that he was not consulted over Zardari's bid for the presidency. Sharif has also given the PPP until today to reinstate the judges sacked by Musharraf last November, the fourth such deadline set. He has warned that he is ready to walk out of the coalition. As president, Zardari, who became known as Mr Ten Percent for his alleged corruption when his wife was twice prime minister, would enjoy a strong measure of protection from prosecution on any of the dozens of criminal charges made against him over the years. He is alleged to have bought a £4.4m country estate in Surrey with ill-gotten gains, and of having siphoned off $1.5bn (£750m) from Pakistan while Bhutto was in office. He was also accused in two murder cases, including the killing of Bhutto's brother Murtaza in 1996. Zardari has never been convicted on any of these charges and maintains that all the allegations were politically motivated. "Zardari is a controversial leader," said Hasan Askari Rizvi, a political analyst in Lahore. "A president in a parliamentary system should be someone above day-to-day politics. With him, controversies will continue around the presidency." Under Pakistan's constitution, the president is supposed to be a figurehead, with the prime minister - Yousaf Raza Gilani - in charge of running the government. However, as party boss and president, Zardari will be all-powerful. "He will overshadow the prime minister," said Rizvi. Zardari spent 11 years in jail in Pakistan, in two stints, then went into exile in New York in 2004. Before his wife's assassination in December last year he held no party position and was deeply unpopular within the PPP and the country. He flew back to bury her and immediately established an iron grip on the party, winning plaudits for keeping it united. Since elections in February, he has manoeuvred the party into all the important positions of power, despite it not having a majority in parliament. While political in-fighting rages in Islamabad, extremists continue to carry out suicide bomb attacks and occupy the tribal border area with Afghanistan. An editorial yesterday in The News, a Pakistan daily, pleaded: "Politicians need to realise that with each day that passes people who face bomb blasts, crippling inflation and a general sense of despair, grow more distant from their government."