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05 April 2012 By Saeed Qureshi
According to certain covert
and overt reports, the sky rocketing clout of Babar
Awan is now fast plummeting and might have already hit
the abyss of ignominy. Here are reports doing the
rounds that president Asif Zardari's disgust or
displeasure with a close cohort has reached the
pinnacle point and he is even averse to seeing him in
party meetings. Of late his name as a special member
of the Parliamentary Committee on National Security
has been withdrawn and Qamar Zaman Kaira has been
appointed in his place.
Babar Awan has not only
been the vice chairmen of the PPP but also the
frontline lancer to beat back the attacks on the PPP
from political adversaries, the press and even the
judiciary. But pride hath a fall or more explicitly
the higher one goes the steeper one falls, are the
clichés that comprehensively portray the emerging
situation in regards to Babar Awan's ongoing pitiable
plight.
As ill luck would have it,
his downfall started with his seeking exemption from
representing himself as a defense witness in support
of the Prime Minister Gilani in the Supreme Court on
the serious issue of writing a letter to the Swiss
authorities for the reopening of the money laundering
cases against president Zardari. That ill-fated
decision was deemed to be a breach of trust and indeed
a betrayal by the president and the prime minister.
The annoyance of the PPP's
high command was so intense that subsequent damage
control or the containment of the stupendously harmful
fallout became impossible for Awan: an overly blunt,
fire-spitting, and as egregiously aggressive in his
posturing as presumptuous in his unguarded outpouring.
He suffered from a double
jeopardy for his scornful comments against the
judiciary when the Supreme Court indefinitely
suspended his license to practice law. The Supreme
Court further asked the Federal Government to appoint
someone else as their lawyer in the Zulfiqar Ali
Bhutto's murder case. Such are tribulations of
politics that a high profile celebrity can become an
object of indifference and degradation like a swing of
pendulum from a dazzling eminence to a murky disgrace.
But that was digression.
The subject of my today's column was to highlight and
bring into sharp focus the inimitable genius of
President Asif Ali Zardari to browbeat his political
contenders in political brinkmanship. He has kept at
bay the Nawaz League and despite their stiff
adversarial demeanor they cannot effectively move to
discredit or dislodge him because of the lurking
paranoid of the army's take over.
The most astounding
accomplishment of AAZ is to bridle his two shrewish
and unpredictable coalition partners namely ANP and
MQM by conceding to their demands howsoever untenable
and excessive those might be. But more amazing and
perhaps befuddling is the unconditional partnership
from the Pakistan Muslim league( Q) whose leaders
not long ago would heap all sorts of indignities and
loathsome curses on PPP, its founder members, the
Bhutto family and the incumbent ruling leadership of
the PPP.
Mr. Zardari will not defend
a person who declined to defend his prime minister in
a court. If he is reputed to be a friend of friends,
he is also notorious for going tooth and nail against
those who betray or ditch him. The hearsay is that a
prominent PPP stalwart Senator Raza Rabbani were also
administered the same unpalatable dose of invectives
and harsh tongue lashing when he tried to assert
himself beyond his permitted stature. Otherwise he is
a gentleman and a scholarly figure in his own right.
Coming back to Asif
Zardari's political jugglery and genetically endowed
ingenuity to stand his ground and outmaneuver and
outflank his contenders. The several scores of
political storms and tornadoes swirling around the
power boat of PPP, could have been driven away only by
an ingenious and a maverick as Zardari happens to be.
His making coalitions and breaking these and then
realigning with new political forces to buoy up the
head of the PPP above the turbulent water would be
written in Pakistan's history as a craft that was an
exclusive preserve of Asif Ali Zardari.
Although he must have been
tremendously frustrated by the unending demands of
both MQM and ANP which some time are untenable, yet he
did not let them off the hook and kept pandering to
them with conceding to their demands by readily
responding with quick compliance.
He did not bother about
JUI's parting company with the PPP''s coalition
government. Nor did be pamper or went extra mile in
case of the PMLN that otherwise was crucial partners
in the government. The two major parties together in
government could have the ideal paradigm for a stable
functioning of the democratic dispensation.
He deliberately created
frivolous bottlenecks and went back on his written
commitments with them to leave the coalition on their
own. In effect, however, he was quite mindful that
PMNL as a coalition partner would be a millstone
around the neck of PPP all along. He used this second
largest party for gaining an absolute consensus for
his own election in the parliament and then pushed
them away with a slight jerk of his leg.
With consummate shrewdness
he has managed to sideline the army's overbearing role
especially that of the military intelligence wing and
ISI in the government affairs that they have been
playing by open and clandestine dictations. The Osama
Ben Laden assassination at Abbottabad proved to be a
blessing in disguise and kind of proverbial silver
lining for PPP government that further undermined and
diluted the influence of the army beyond their
military ambit.
He kept every political
party in good humor till he was unanimously elected as
the President of Pakistan. He kept away the
utilization of the army to restore law and order in
Karachi and elsewhere in Pakistan despite ubiquitous
clamors and louder calls from both public and the
politicians. His knack to smile away every adversity
that befell and are still on the way is a rare
demonstration of his taking the challenges with
fortitude, confidence and ease of manners.
The bedrock of his
political acumen and approach towards the politicians
and also the neighbors of Pakistan can be summed up in
one word: reconciliation. No one among the politicians
who were in power has exhibited such large-heatedness
and patently forgiving postures that have turned out
to be amazingly rewarding for PPP government.
Apparently he never looked to be provoked or
outrageous or retaliatory to the persistent smearing
of his character by the press corps, the political
rank and file and the cross section of the Pakistani
society.
He has remained visibly
unmoved, unconcerned and brushed away the vituperation
of being the most corrupt president of Pakistan. He is
also accused of being an accomplice in the brutal
assassination of his wife and circumventing her will
or fabricating it to replace her. He seldom takes
seriously the accusing fingers pointed at him for his
alleged involvement in the murder of Benazir and his
brother in law Mir Murtaza Bhutto.
There are such disquieting
and nerve-shattering stigmas against him that should
have the intensity to knock any one's brains out. But
he has been on the whole tolerant and defiantly
embarked upon his chosen path of remaining cool and
composed to the extent of being thick-skinned. And
that policy of exceptional appeasement has paid
dividends to him. This attitude of pervasive
accommodation is not applicable to the party cohorts
who would betray him. After all he has the Baloch
blood running in his veins.
That is the cardinal reason
that the PPP government that is sunk up to neck in
corruption cesspool and exposed to a host of legal and
moral setbacks is still hanging on to power for four
years. Mr. Zardari himself is retaining his coveted
presidency for more than three years. These are
laudable and momentous achievements if judged in the
face of the crises that hover round the PPP government
and its charlatans from prime minister to an MNA and
further down.
So Makhdoom Javed Hashmi
brilliantly summed up the entire philosophy of Mr.
Zardari's inimitable politicking style by saying that
one needs to be a PhD in understating how Mr. Zardari
conducts himself in politics, deflects the poignant
challenges, disarms the opponents and emerges
unscathed.
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