President Zardari is still in for some fight

Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari might have lost the battle this time but he is showing no signs of relenting. Amidst hopes of a stronger Parliamentary system in Pakistan, President Zardari has continued with his political intrigues. In an effort to show that he is still the boss of PPP, President Zardari removed Sherry Rehman from the post of the Party’s Information Secretary. Sherry Rehman had resigned from her post as Information Minister of Pakistan on in protest of ban on Geo TV. She had clarified as early as February 27 that she would resign if the free media was assaulted in any way. However, her removal from the post of PPP’s Information Secretary came as price of her ‘disloyalty’ towards President Zardari. So President Zardari is still not in a mood to put up with political defiance.

In an even more surprising revelation, President Zardari is negotiating a deal with PML-Q to form coalition to stake a claim for the Punjab Assembly and then extend this partnership to the Center. The most obvious fall-out of this deal would be a change of P.M. in Pakistan. Gilani was a consensus candidate for the post of the P.M. when the PPP and PML-N had agreed on forming the coalition at the center. By supporting the PML-Q in Punjab, Zardari could inflict a political defeat on the PPP and replace P.M. Gilani with someone from the new coalition.  However, for such a plan to materialize, the President Zardari will again have to tread through murky politics of much despised Ordinances. There is still much spin left in Pakistan’s domestic politics and only time will if President Zardari has accepted defeat or merely gathering momentum for the next round of confrontation.