Asif Zardari needs all the help he can get. Despite his shady reputation, he should get it

Sep 11th 2008
From The Economist print edition


Asif Zardari needs all the help he can get. Despite his shady reputation, he should get it


AFP






THREE clouds hovered over Asif Zardari as he was sworn in on September 9th as Pakistan’s president. The economy is in crisis. Second, the war against the local Taliban is going badly (see article). And, third, Mr Zardari himself has not shaken off the reputation he earned when his late wife, Benazir Bhutto, was prime minister, as “Mr 10%”—a man less interested in running his country wisely than in looting it greedily.

Pessimists are already predicting a short, chaotic and disastrous presidency, followed, as night follows day in Pakistani politics, by a solid-looking general stepping in to stop the rot. But since it is solid-looking generals who have reduced Pakistan to this dire pass, Mr Zardari deserves, if not the benefit of the doubt, then at least the help due the constitutionally elected leader of a country of 165m people that is, or should be, a vital NATO ally in the war in Afghanistan. In return, he needs to show that he really does have at heart the national interest rather than self-aggrandisement or self-enrichment.

The omens are not good. Two economic issues above all are fuelling public anger: price rises, especially for food, and power cuts, a consequence of a shortage of money to pay for imported fuel. Both demand fiscal discipline. Printing money would worsen inflation, debauch the currency and bring a balance-of-payments crisis.

Yet in at least two ways, apparently at Mr Zardari’s behest, the government has sacrificed fiscal responsibility for political advantage. First, it raised the procurement price of grain—benefiting mainly farmers in Punjab, Pakistan’s most prosperous province (and the stronghold of the main opposition leader, Nawaz Sharif) but pushing up the cost of food subsidies for the cash-starved government. Meanwhile, a proposed capital-gains tax was dropped, reportedly after Mr Zardari was lobbied by wealthy financiers from Karachi, the biggest city in Mr Zardari’s own power-base, Sindh province.

More encouragingly, Mr Zardari’s officials have reportedly come up with a sensible stabilisation plan that should win the support of international donors (see article). If so, America’s Congress should smile on the ten-year, $15 billion aid proposal before it. America has been lavish in the aid it has provided since September 11th 2001. But most has gone to the army. Reducing poverty and offering economic opportunity would also do much to ease the fight against Islamist extremism.


Killing your allies is usually a bad idea
So would better cross-border co-operation with Afghanistan. Mr Zardari is to be applauded for making President Hamid Karzai the guest of honour at his inauguration. His predecessor, Pervez Musharraf, and Mr Karzai scarcely bothered to conceal their mutual antipathy. Mr Zardari resembles Mr Musharraf, however, in talking a good game: about the importance of fighting the Taliban not for America’s or Afghanistan’s sake but for Pakistan’s. Like Mr Musharraf, too, Mr Zardari may find it hard to persuade Pakistan’s people that the fight is worthwhile, especially since the army itself, whose soldiers’ lives are on the line, is not wholly committed to it.

Exasperated at the continuing infiltration of armed militants from Pakistan’s tribal areas, America has launched air-strikes—and even sent soldiers—on its soil. This seems intended in part to focus Mr Zardari’s wayward mind on the task in hand. But it also causes huge resentment in Pakistan, especially since at least one raid killed civilians instead of militants. As the United States is finding in Afghanistan itself, there is no surer way of angering local people, undermining a friendly government and boosting Taliban recruitment than killing civilians. It is no way to treat an ally, even Mr 10%.



Hasni Essa
Islam for Pluralism