“The president in particular is very much a figurehead – he wields no real power whatsoever. He is apparently chosen by the government, but the qualities he is required to display are not those of leadership but those of finely judged outrage. For this reason the President is always a controversial choice, always an infuriating but fascinating character. His job is not to wield power but to draw attention away from it.”

These insightful lines were neither written by any Pakistani author nor about any Pakistani president. They are taken out of Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, particularly where the chores of the Galactic President are described. Doesn’t it fit our present case though?

When lawyers take to the street, regardless of their success or failure, President Zardari must be wondering what he has gotten himself into. Governing a wild and erratic state like the Islamic republic is never easy. And whenever a democratic government takes over, it becomes impossible to rule; yet those undeserving civilians never learn a lesson. Of course if any civilian or democrat needs to learn a lesson it is the successive leaders of the PPP for they have repeatedly and plainly been told that they are no more needed in power. But somehow they do not understand. Consequently, whenever the PPP is in power with a weak mandate, it is deprived of all executive power. The defence establishment always remains sceptical of its defence and foreign policies, the judiciary tries its best to restrain its executive choices and the opposition dubs it as a government of traitors. I hope you remember Sahabzada Yaqub Khan as the foreign minister in Benazir Bhutto’s first government.

Of course the PPP government cannot escape the blame altogether. In the absence of support from the traditional establishment it is confused whether to fulfil populist promises or follow the donors’ stringent policies. When it attempts populism, it is often dubbed as corrupt and when it follows the latter, it is labelled inept and is seen as signing its own death warrant.

In the absence of the traditional Bhutto charisma, the current democratic dispensation is faring poorly. There is no gainsaying that the country is facing its worst energy, inflation, food and law and order crises to date. There is no point in saying that these crises are not of this government’s making, for nobody is ready to listen. The government’s crisis of leadership is now transforming into a crisis of legitimacy and the Supreme Court’s verdict on the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) and the general mood has placed a big question mark next to the president’s official title. It seems that a defiant judiciary will certainly challenge his eligibility and may even eventually go to the extent of cancelling his election to the post. This is something unusual for a court that even during the height of its confrontation with the Musharraf regime, allowed his re-election to take place, stopping merely the notification. It is clear today that both the army and the judiciary are weary of any government interference in their domains, particularly in the appointment of new judges and army chief, hence they may use the implementation of the verdict as a bargaining chip. But even when these dictates are followed, there is simply no guarantee that the logical end will not come to pass soon.

So, today President Zardari faces a difficult decision. Follow the dictates of the verdict and by doing so sign his own discharge orders or to embark on a confrontationist path and bring the entire house and perhaps the system down with him. This is indeed a terrible set of choices. How did this day ever come to pass? Of course there is some truth in the president’s suspicions of a large scale conspiracy, but he should admit his own follies too. When his party came into power it was under curious pressures not to reinstate the deposed judges or to sack Pervez Musharraf. Of course the issue of the NRO should also have been among his concerns, but that concern did not pay off as the judiciary was restored, which finally struck down the Ordinance. In those difficult days he clustered around him a coterie of advisors whose only job was to defend him and while doing so alienate many of his allies. Then promises were made without taking into cognisance the difficulty of the circumstances or the consequences of a breach of promise. The government is not very popular right now and the legal crisis of legitimacy is a direct reflection of the sentiment on the street. But while the government’s popularity may return as it overcomes the usual mid-term blues, the president may not be so lucky unless the situation changes dramatically.

Let us face it. Asif Ali Zardari’s power does not flow from his presidential post but from his party office. Ideally he should have either followed the example of Sonia Gandhi and led the system from without, or followed the examples of Zulfikar and Benazir Bhutto and led as the premier from within. But to be fair he assumed the presidential title only due to political compulsions.

In my view it was a great mistake on the part of the PPP leadership to leave Amin Fahim as a fully empowered regent in its absence. The PML-N quickly recognised its similar mistake and hence poor Javed Hashmi had to spend several years in prison for distributing a letter sent to Fauzia Wahab. In Benazir’s absence from the country, curious connections developed between the party’s alternative leadership and the establishment to the extent that the latter felt Benazir Bhutto expendable. The party was thus threatening to melt down when Zardari assumed the role of the party chief. To consolidate his position he was left with no choice but to become the president. Again in hindsight, accepting the NRO in any form short of parliamentary legislation was another grave error.

Yet the confluence of difficult circumstances and choices has brought the system to the brink. But what can the president do now to save the day? If there was a grand narrative forcing him to act as the bad cop, he should realise it has compromised his public image and should hence change. It is time to make popular choices. Similarly, he needs to recognise the thin line between genuine threats and only perceived fears. Despite immunity, the president’s post is under threat; there is no need to interpret this as a threat to his life. Nor should he make it a matter of life or death for his party. If he assumes a conciliatory posture it will not be misinterpreted as a sign of weakness but a popular sacrifice to save the system.

What would I have done if I were in a similar situation? I would have realised that this NRO business was at the heart of all my compromises and loss of public face. I would have asked the embattled ministers to step down, gone on television to address the nation and announced my decision to stand aside to allow the law to take its due course. A well designed speech would have appealed to the voter and would have reversed the flow of pressure. If President Zardari loses one official title and saves the system, his popularity is bound to grow, and while doing so he may also free his representative government of all compromises. Do you think if the establishment has failed to indict him in court, will it succeed under his own government? And since the chairman senate is his trusted lieutenant bound to act as a caretaker president, the president has only to gain from such a tactical surrender. It leaves him free to re-enter direct politics in a future term as the prime ministerial candidate with a clean slate. Right now it is time to strengthen democracy, especially now that his position as the party chief is far more comfortable than in the past.

This article first appeared in the Jan 28 edition of Daily Times. Click here to visit the original.

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