Rumours still abound in federal capital

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While the health bulletin issued by President Asif Ali Zardari’s personal physician Col Salman gave a message of hope saying that the president was stable, comfortable and was resting after initial tests and investigations had been within normal range and further tests would be carried out, rumour-mongers in the federal capital continued to have a field day on Thursday suspecting the claims of the president’s close aides that he would return soon.
“He (the president) has resigned,” was the rumour that remained on top of everything, leaving many to speculate whether he would come back or stay abroad for the rest of his five-year term on medical grounds.
The argument to support the president’s strategy if there was any – to leave the country at a time when the political scene is heating up, the opposition turning against him in and outside parliament and the Supreme Court also warming up to take the NRO and the memo issues to the “logical” end – is that he would not resign or give in, rather he would brave the situation that seemingly appears to cost him his presidency.
In this case, the option is to stay in Dubai on the pretext of ill-health with his handpicked Farooq H Naik, the Senate chairman, officiating in his absence as acting president – the constitution does not specify a time period beyond which a person cannot hold the office of the head of state because of ill health. The choice remains with the president whether to resign or not, though there are other constitutional provisions available to remove him. “He will not resign,” a very confident friend of the president, who knows him for ages, said.
But what his close aides here say – of course they cannot give the exact date because they don’t know what exactly the tests indicated and what the doctors prescribed – is that he will return; a political but at the same time an imprecise argument. Certainly, they cannot say that he will not return. The development in Dubai was that the president had been shifted from the ICU to a normal hospital room where he was said to be resting to recuperate. This is a positive sign. What the medical tests, which are, as we are told, yet to be carried out, will indicate remains to be seen.
An official statement on Wednesday said the president would remain under observation for some time. Understandably, a cardiac patient needs to be kept under observation and again no one knows how long he will be advised to stay in Dubai under the observation of his doctors. The hope, however, here is that he will get well soon and return to resume his responsibilities.
Nonetheless, his detractors do not give him the benefit of ill-health. They see something deeper than what meets the eye. Their take is that there is a blessing in disguise and the president would use this opportunity in his political interest and he would stay abroad to wait for the dust to settle.
Bilawal Zardari’s meeting with Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani is being seen in the context of a conspiracy theory that President Zardari has decided to stay away and he has launched his son in politics. It was for the first time on Wednesday that Bilawal had co-chaired with the prime minister a meeting of PPP with a select group in attendance. Whatever, the things will start getting clear soon.

3 COMMENTS

  1. we as a nation as a whole and Prime minister and PPP specially should be shameful in picking a lad of 23 years as our leader. It is just like the monarchs whose sons even in cradle could become a king. what a pitty ? O ALLAH save us from looters , plunderers and killers and jokers like zardari , bilawal and gilani.

  2. In the recent past, media thought Hussain Haqqani would not return. He returned. Nobody had the moral courage to apologise and accept their wrong assessment. Now, the same is going to happen in the case of our elected President Asif Ali Zardari. He is a fighter. He will return. He is not like his opponents who escaped to Jeddah.

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