The president under fire

One thing is for sure: President Asif Ali Zardari is a determined man. He did not postpone his visits to the UK and France despite intense criticism at home and even abroad for its timing. He seems confident that he knows best what is good for the country.

Pakistan is suffering from the worst floods the region has faced in decades, with more than 1,600 already dead and over 13 million people badly affected. There is a valid expectation that its president should be at home directing the relief effort and commiserating with the sufferers of this great natural calamity. But Zardari does not think so and says it is the job of the prime minister whom he has appointed to mind the store. Undeterred, he visited France for talks with President Sarkozy and others. He also found time to see his personal property, an expensive chateau in the French countryside. In the backdrop of Pakistan’s poverty and growing economic crisis, many are asking how and when this chateau was acquired.

The trip to London came under even greater criticism. Pakistanis were deeply hurt when, a few days before Zardari’s arrival in London, British Prime Minister David Cameron chose to make provocative comments against Pakistan during a visit to its traditional rival India, where the media gleefully picked them up as new ammunition for Pakistan-bashing. Cameron accused Pakistan of “exporting terrorism” to India and the West, and for “looking both ways” in its ties with the Taliban in Afghanistan. There was a general demand in Pakistan that Zardari should have postponed or cancelled his visit to the UK to show displeasure against this unwarranted attack on Pakistan, more so because Cameron repeatedly refused to take back his words or water them down. Zardari, however, stuck to his decision to go ahead with the visit but promised that he would, in effect, be able to persuade Cameron to back down. Clearly, Cameron has not done so, though both have expressed satisfaction with the talks and have described the UK-Pakistan friendship as “unbreakable” though, clearly, Cameron did not live up to this friendship while in India.

President Zardari’s decision to address a public meeting in Birmingham organised by his party, the PPP, was not in keeping with a time-honoured practice that when visiting abroad, the country’s president shows himself above party politics. The news of protests and some disruption in the meeting hardly adds to the dignity which the president’s visit abroad ought to have. It was originally reported that the Birmingham meeting was being held to launch heir Bilawal into politics, which again should not have been a part of the programme for an official visit to a foreign country. However, Bilawal did not make his debut at Birmingham.

The campaign launched to raise funds for the relief of flood victims is laudable but eyebrows have been raised by Zardari’s own personal contribution of £2.5 million, a figure that can hardly be matched by any Pakistani who has a visible source of income.

Zardari’s public ratings have been going down for quite some time and he has drawn more fire because of the latest foreign tour that could have been easily postponed for some time.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 12^th, 2010.