A couple of months ago, Javed Hashmi famously, if frustratingly, quipped that you needed a PhD to understand Brand Zardari. It was at once an admission of failure to read the PPP co-chairman’s craft as well as an acknowledgement of his shrewd politics.
It is probably safe to suggest that a vast majority of his compatriots will agree with both the corollaries. The PPP leader’s performance (emphasis added) post-Benazir assassination — right from producing a hand-written will (it has a fair share of pop-eyed Doubting Thomases) and anointing Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari as the chairman to the deft manipulation of the Senate opposition leader’s election shows he is the man to beat.
Few critics gave him a chance of a decent stint once he cleverly manoeuvred his way to the highest office in the land by ousting a man, who had laundered his X-files with an effervescent soap called NRO. Most cited Zardari’s lack of experience and others, still condescendingly, reckoned the office was too big for his little shoes.
How wrong they were.
Shy of three years in the job, Zardari has not only survived brilliantly against the run of play, he has neutralised even those horses on which apparently, “safe” bets were placed for a last laugh.
The gymnastics appear to have few parallels — even Nadia Comaneci would be hard-pressed to emulate Brand Zardari. Yet each time he has brandished as harmless a work as Reconciliation — BB’s bible of good intent — as his inspiration for picking mission impossibles.
He, of the smarmy smile, tells the world that Reconciliation is it. Is it? Not for a minute does anyone with even a remote sense of Pakistani politics would concur the formulae on offer is a recipe out of Ms Bhutto’s work (as Pervaiz Elahi would testify) — for all her sharp skills.
Zardari could well have been her ustaad given his spectacular run that has PPP in command and looking good for even another term — all this despite such a poor record since it was swept back into power in 2008.
The Qatil League conversion — like any dollar-rupee exchange — is already passé. I remember chatting with a senior journalist on the eve of the induction of Musharraf’s erstwhile quislings into the federal cabinet.
There was little one could do but give the devil his due at pulling off a Bill Wale Dulhaniya Le Jayen Ge — bill as in the budget document, for which the marriage was hurriedly conceived (Project Annex Punjab is reportedly, next).
However, both of us were sure Faisal Saleh Hayat wouldn’t feature in the cast. To our amazement, Zardari outdid himself to achieve just that — All in a Day’s Work style!
Zardari’s chess has meant that even ex-deserters like the establishment’s left and right wingers, MQM and JUI(F), are virtually eating out of his palms. The ubiquitous establishment itself is now in bed with the man it hated like no-one’s business.
Last week, Zardari formalised the romance with a categorical assertion that he was not falling for Nawaz Sharif’s bait. The metamorphosis from being an anti-establishment party to the one defending its “honour” is complete.
Zardari has virtually become the king of realignment. Who would have thought even the security establishment led by the big daddy that privately, lampooned him and even considered shooing him out of office when the lawyers and opposition were about to besiege Islamabad in 2009 — according to WikiLeaks — would come around to coveting his support, especially since Sharif is seen as a bit of nightmare that the big daddy wouldn’t hear of.
Of all Zardari’s ‘achievements’, the most telling is the way he has stonewalled the reinforced judiciary to the extent people have virtually forgotten what in late 2009 seemed to be ‘writing on the wall’ in terms of the NRO-driven fate of an ‘accidental’ president. Even his staunchest critics acknowledge, even if grudgingly, that he has defeated what seemed like impossible odds.
During the course of the stunning assault on Sharif last week, he made an observation, which until now had been confined to drawing room babble — that he would teach the “the brothers Sharif” what politics is all about.
He made a first stab at snatching Punjab at the behest of Governor Taseer, which backfired because he was misled by an ambition that had no homework to show for.
By investing in the politics of “winning constituencies” with Q, and sounding out the security establishment that his party was the only viable political force that could help them tide over their shame post-Abbottabad, he is now in a position to offer free lessons, which is what he did.
Of course, it was morally obtuse to call Sharif names and de-sanctify the office of the president with his fulminations but who said it was about the straight and the narrow with Pakistan’s shrewdest politician.
The writer is a newspaper editor based in Islamabad and can be reached at kaamyabi@gmail.com