President Zardari reasserts grip on presidency: WP

WASHINGTON - Two weeks after reporting that President Asif Ali Zardari was facing growing public anger and disillusionment over his “remote presidency”, The Washington Post said Tuesday that the Pakistani leader had “come out swinging” to hold off his political foes.
“President Asif Ali Zardari, fighting to keep his job amid pressure from opponents in the media, the courts, the Parliament and the military, appears to have reasserted his grip on the presidency for the time being,” the newspaper said in a dispatch from Islamabad, citing analysts.
“But Zardari’s government remains caught between pressure to support Washington in the war against Islamist insurgents in Afghanistan and the need to improve its tenuous relations with the Army, which is focused on fighting domestic Taliban extremists and mistrusts the Obama administration’s friendship with India, Pakistan’s neighbour and arch rival,” correspondent Pamela Constable wrote.
“On Monday, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani — who reports to Zardari but is also a political rival — warned in a television interview that any sizable increase in US troops in Afghanistan would lead to a spill over of insurgents into Pakistan, further destabilising the border area where troops are now conducting a ground and aerial war against domestic Taliban forces”.
The warning from Gilani came one day before President Barack Obama is scheduled to announce his long-awaited new Afghan strategy, which is likely to include adding tens of thousands of more troops. The dispatch said that after Zardari relinquished control over nuclear weapons, his opponents in Parliament are demanding that he give up even more authority, and some have called on him to resign.
Meanwhile, it said the President has also become vulnerable to legal action by Pakistan’s Supreme Court. “An amnesty for past corruption charges against Zardari and a host of other officials expired Saturday, and although the president cannot be prosecuted while in office, the High Court could also rule that his election was illegitimate.
and then pursue the original cases against him,” correspondent Constable said.
“But Zardari, backed into a corner by multiple adversaries, has come out swinging,” she wrote, citing his defiant speech last week. He also forced the cancellation of a cable TV show whose host often criticised him, according to the dispatch.


Source: nation.com.pk/