Game, set, match to Zardari?

Zardar­i is back with a vengea­nce. What rabbit will he pull out of his hat now? Here are some possib­ilitie­s.

A man written off last month, smiles a smile dripping with contempt for those who think they have him all figured out. He has thumbed his nose at the generals, stuck out his tongue at the judges, poured scorn on journalists, and stared down the opposition. Four brutal years later, he is still the president, he is still the chairman of his party, and he is still combining the two while safely ensconced in court-proof office.

What rabbit will he pull out of his hat now? Here are some possibilities:

Rabbit 1 — Senate elections are held in February and the PPP romps home with a near majority, gaining a commanding position in the Upper House. Farooq Naik, the current Senate Chairman, makes way for “Dr” Babar Awan. If Zardari then wants to take some time off from his day job, Awan will become the acting president. Country in safe hands? Zardari thinks so, comfortable in the knowledge that Awan will give as good as he gets.

But will he? When the cookie crumbles, the crumbs fall where they may and are lapped up by the waiting hounds. Enough said.

Rabbit 2 — Zardari calls general elections in October this year, six months ahead of their scheduled time. The massive official gravy train chugs out into the electoral arena, money and patronage flows like a raging river, men and materials are bought and sold at competitive prices, alliances are stitched together with a web of tempting offers, and the jiyala vote is mobilised the way it is always mobilised i.e. victimhood. The Master Magician aims to conjure up a minority government once again from the womb of a hung parliament.

Rabbit 3 — Launch Aseefa Zardari. The Benazir lookalike barnstorms the country draped in PPP colours reviving the memory of her martyred mother and firing up the party base. Aseefa becomes the lead campaigner, untainted by the scars of the party’s disastrous governance. A fresh face, a fresh outlook, a fresh agenda. Forget corruption, forget rental projects, forget memo-mania, forget the smouldering wreckage of PIA, Railways, Steel Mills and Pepco, forget the rising debt and growth, forget even the gas and electricity woes — the PPP campaign will be fuelled by emotion, and who better to whip up emotions than a fresh face of the party guided by the ghosts of her mother and grandfather.

Rabbit 4 — Cash, cash and more cash. Crisp BISP notes flow into households at double the speed. More hard cash is disbursed under the umbrella of flood affectee aid, targeting constituencies deemed vulnerable. But where does the cash come from? Simple: print, print, print.

Rabbit 5 — Massive but gradual reshuffling of the bureaucracy to inject the ‘right’ officials in the ‘right’ constituencies. The power of incumbency comes into play at a scale that would be hard to reverse even if a neutral caretaker set up is put into a place. Buttress this with a surge in official employment — the PM has recently lifted the ban on jobs — and a generous doling out of favours, perks or contracts to key people, groups and biradaris in key constituencies.

Make no mistake: Zardari is back with a vengeance. Like a professional cricketer, he wants to peak at the right time, and that time is now. He seems to believe he’s got it all figured out. If he can ride the raging storm, survive the judicial assault, dodge the generals’ bullet and maintain the political initiative, he will have the narrative he wants for the campaign: “I fought, I won”.

But what if things don’t turn out this way? What if the judges and the generals get him? Well, perhaps that’s even better for him than the first scenario, because then he would be a genuine political martyr. And would have an even more compelling campaign narrative: “I fought, they got me like they got Benazir Bhutto and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto — tum kitnay Bhutto maaro gey…”.

Game, set, match to Zardari?

If so, who’s the real loser? Nawaz Sharif, for having being outplayed yet again? Imran Khan, for having crashed and burned at the altar of realpolitik? Judges and generals, for misreading the political situation and the shrinking public appetite for turbulence?

Or the people of Pakistan, for yet again opting for a status quo power which may know how to run a campaign, but has no clue how to run a country?

Published in The Express Tribune, January 8^th, 2012.