Devil's Advocate: Asif Ali Zardari

NOT ME: Asif Ali Zardari says he can't be Pakistan's Sonia Gandhi for she is too great.

          

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Rajdeep Sardesai

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Keywords: Pervez Musharraf, Nawaz Sharif

Karan Thapar: And this is where Nawaz Sharif is keeping you in check—keeping a certain uncertainty and keeping a certain apprehensiveness is a good thing?

Asif Ali Zardari: I think challenges are always good. They keep everybody on their position. People are seeing too much into the fact—he is my ally…the press is watching, public, opinion is watching.

Karan Thapar: You have enunciated something that will take most people completely by surprise. Never before have politicians have said I would like an ally to keep me in check. You have said the unusual—many will be very pleased to hear this. When your new government is formed, what will your role be?

Asif Ali Zardari: I will take a leaf out of your politics and do something like talking to the allied parties, making democracy come alive.

Karan Thapar: You mean you are going to be the Sonia Gandhi of Pakistan?

Asif Ali Zardari: She is too great—for me to be Sonia.

Karan Thapar: But that is the sort of role you see for yourself? Above the government, liaising with the parties and ensuring the government follows the directions?

Asif Ali Zardari: I won’t put it that way. I don’t want to be above the government. I want to be with the government, supporting the government. Mind you, we had a giant of 21st century with us—she is still with us spiritually. She is with us in her political acumen, but she is not with us today. So I have to go back to the basics and re-develop the party.

Karan Thapar: So you are going to re-develop the party, make sure that it overcomes its falls and at the some time you are going to be a liaison with the government and other political parties?

Asif Ali Zardari: Something to that effect.

Karan Thapar: Which is in a sense the Sonia Gandhi role?

Asif Ali Zardari: Is it? You tell me.

Karan Thapar: Who will be your Manmohan Singh?

Asif Ali Zardari: The search is on.

Karan Thapar: When Benazir Bhutto, your late wife, was assassinated it was announced that Makhdoom Amin Fahim would be the prime ministerial candidate? Why is the search still on?

Asif Ali Zardari: Makhdoom Amin Fahim is a very senior person in our party and we respect him tremendously. But the challenge we were looking at that time—of getting a two-third majority—and we thought in the party that we are going to make it. But somehow something happened—something which we haven’t been able to put a finger on and I have called it selective rigging.

Karan Thapar: So now you need a different person perhaps?

Asif Ali Zardari: No, it’s not that I need a different person. In the party we are rethinking the position. Fahim is of course the first runner, we are just seeing how are we are going to get out of this absolute challenge that we have been faced with: allies not being there to check us, judges’ issue coming over.