President Zardari Was Evasive In His
Interview
16 Jan 2012
By Saeed Qureshi
In his first of its kind interview with GEO
Television's premier journalist and Capital Talk
show's anchor Hamid Mir, Pakistan's President Asif Ali
Zardari displayed an easy yet evasive posture. Hamid
Mir reputed to be an adept media wizard in interviews
with prominent figures loaded him with all sorts of
intriguing and nagging questions.
Yet president Zardari looked unruffled and exhibited a
non- challant countenance as if he was neither
interested nor frustrated with the tough nature of
questions as well as the scathing tone and tenor of
the otherwise a polite interviewer.
The interview came after the lull of a long time and
perhaps for the first time from a head of state who
was exceedingly controversial and has been in the eye
of storm of serious allegations ranging from colossal
corruption to sowing a politics of intrigues and
deviousness in Pakistan.
His interview exuded a cumulative impression as if the
whole world was on the wrong side and he and his party
were treading the right track and serving the nation
of Pakistan in an exemplary manner.
He ruled out any tussle with the opposition parties,
with the judiciary and even with the armed forces of
Pakistan. While even the novices of Pakistani politics
were crying foul about the gross and unprecedented
mismanagement of Pakistan's affairs, president Zardari
dilated on Benazir's Income Support Program that in
his view was changing the destinies of the downtrodden
and would turn a new leaf in the economic and social
well being of the poor people of Pakistan.
Of the host of biting questions, those about army's
complicity in harboring Osama bin laden's covert stay
in Abbottabad and Haqqani involvement in the so called
Memogate scandal were paramount but were either
parried by the president or were answered in a
counter-question manner.
When asked why army was implicitly blamed by his
government for Osama's clandestine sojourn in a place
near Kakul Academy, the president deflected its onus
by pointing out that it was alluded to the former
president Musharraf and not to the incumbent army
hierarchy.
The counter question about Haqqani projected
involvement in the memo gate scandal, president
Zardari shot back by pleading that if he( Haqqani) was
in league with Mansoor Ijaz then why he should come
all the way to Pakistan to take to legal recourse.
He completely absolved himself of even knowing Mansoor
Ijaz who has rudely jolted the sitting government in
Pakistan. Mr. Ijaz an American citizen claims that
Hussain Haqqani and Asif Zardari were both involved in
the drafting and sending of the Memo to president
Obama's former national security advisor James Jones.
President Zardari categorically ruled out any
compliance of the apex court's verdict to write a
letter to the Swiss courts for reopening the so called
Swiss bank account cases that primarily focus on both
late Benazir Bhutto and Asif Ali Zardari. He took
shelter behind the off- repeated plea that reopening
of the Swiss bank cases was tantamount to the trial of
late Mohtrama Benazir Bhutto and her grave; adding
that the PPP would never allow that.
He argued that fundamentally these cases were
instituted against her late spouse and not him and
thus were essentially to denigrate her. He however,
mooted the proposition that once he was out of the
presidency, the next government could pursue those
cases and do whatever they would like.
President Zardari shuffled his answers between two
hats that he is wearing as the chairman of the PPP and
being the president of Pakistan. When the crafty
anchor would remind him of a pledge or declaration
that he made but was not honored, or not well taken by
the people, he would dismiss it by saying that he did
so as the chairman of the party and not the head of
the state.
Was he trying to hedge under the party's chairmanship
by giving an impression that the party chairman's
decisions could run counter to those that would be
taken as the head of state? More often than not he
would place many debatable decisions in the basket of
the parliament which he ruled was independent and
sovereign.
He thought that the institutions and national building
departments such as PIA, Railways, Steel Mills and
WAPDA were not going to dogs but were weakening and
could be rehabilitated. Referring to his frequent
visits to China, he expressed his robust hope that
with those links that he established there, would
bring fruit in the longer run and Pakistan would reap
huge economic benefits out of those.
About the relationship with India, he highlighted his
interaction with the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh with whom he claimed to have raised the water
question that in his view if not decided amicably,
would assume monstrous proportions for both the
neighbors in future and would spell disaster for their
economies.
He mockingly downplayed the sudden surge of Imran Khan
on Pakistan's political horizon by childishly
comparing it with PPP"s legendry founder late Zulfikar
Ali Bhutto. He argued that while Mr. Bhutto rallied
around him the downtrodden and underdogs of the
society, the PTI chairman was embracing the renegades,
opportunists and runaways from other parties who were
crooks and merely joined him for selfish motives.
It was a myopic analogy by president Zardari because
to preempt that all those who are joining the PTI
would turn out to be swindlers and self serving
villains were naivety and a simplistic denouement
against a budding leader.
Moreover, Mr. Bhutto emerged in a different set of
circumstances that happen once in centuries. It was
dismemberment of Pakistan, although he had already
formed his party. But to claim that all rank and files
in his party were commoners would not be an objective
assessment.
Also it is primarily not the categories of humans or
their social standing but the sincerity of purpose
that can come from any person rich or poor, low or
high. Mr. Bhutto later expelled all his pioneering
revolutionaries and fell back in the company of
Sardars, aristocrats, elites, oligarchs, feudals and
high class thugs.
President Zardari told the interviewer that his party
would contest the next elections on Mr. ZA Bhutto's
famous slogan of "Roti, Kapra and Makan". When Hamid
Mir pointed that people were suffering from a deluge
of problems with no water, no power, no gas and no
Roti, how the people would again believe in his party,
president Zardari referred to Farzana Raja's income
program and insisted on showing clip of her speech to
prove that people were very well off now.
When asked as to why the reference about the retrial
of late Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was being sent to the
supreme court now while it was not done so during the
two stints of Benazir Bhutto's as prime minister,
president Zardari evaded an elaborate answer and
responded by merely saying that she wanted to do but
could not do so.
About the PPP leaders notably Dr. Zulfiqar Mirza and
Shah Mehmood Qureshi leaving the Pakistan People's
Party, the president dished out his point of view that
merited more elaboration. To the public allegation of
Shah Mehmood that Pakistan's Atomic program was not
safe in the hands of president Zardari, he disclosed
that the nuclear regime was not under him anymore and
was transferred to the parliament already.
The unique interview which was eagerly watched by the
people in and out of Pakistan left many questions
marks than clearing the fog of apprehensions and
allegations about the performance of the incumbent
coalition government and the murky conduct of the
leaders now ruling the roost.
©
EsinIslam.Com
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