President Zardari reasserts grip on presidency: WP

WASHINGTON - Two weeks after reporting that President Asif Ali Zardari was facing growing public anger and disillusionment over his remote presidency, The Washington Post said Tuesday that the Pakistani leader had come out swinging to hold off his political foes.
President Asif Ali Zardari, fighting to keep his job amid pressure from opponents in the media, the courts, the Parliament and the military, appears to have reasserted his grip on the presidency for the time being, the newspaper said in a dispatch from Islamabad, citing analysts.
But Zardaris government remains caught between pressure to support Washington in the war against Islamist insurgents in Afghanistan and the need to improve its tenuous relations with the Army, which is focused on fighting domestic Taliban extremists and mistrusts the Obama administrations friendship with India, Pakistans neighbour and arch rival, correspondent Pamela Constable wrote.
On Monday, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani who reports to Zardari but is also a political rival warned in a television interview that any sizable increase in US troops in Afghanistan would lead to a spill over of insurgents into Pakistan, further destabilising the border area where troops are now conducting a ground and aerial war against domestic Taliban forces.
The warning from Gilani came one day before President Barack Obama is scheduled to announce his long-awaited new Afghan strategy, which is likely to include adding tens of thousands of more troops. The dispatch said that after Zardari relinquished control over nuclear weapons, his opponents in Parliament are demanding that he give up even more authority, and some have called on him to resign.
Meanwhile, it said the President has also become vulnerable to legal action by Pakistans Supreme Court. An amnesty for past corruption charges against Zardari and a host of other officials expired Saturday, and although the president cannot be prosecuted while in office, the High Court could also rule that his election was illegitimate.
and then pursue the original cases against him, correspondent Constable said.
But Zardari, backed into a corner by multiple adversaries, has come out swinging, she wrote, citing his defiant speech last week. He also forced the cancellation of a cable TV show whose host often criticised him, according to the dispatch.
The dispatch said, Zardari appears to have temporarily fended off a far more powerful opponent: the Army. Analysts said that although the Army is still unhappy about Zardaris concessions to Washington and soft stance on India, and has been working against him behind the scenes, it does not want to be linked to a messy or illegitimate change of government.
Moreover, it said, military experts noted that the army is heavily dependent on US spare parts and equipment to wage its current air war against the Taliban and cannot afford to sabotage Zardaris ties with Washington just as US officials are calling for a new strategic relationship with Pakistan.
For Zardari to go, there has to be a definite push from somewhere, and it usually comes from Rawalpindi, Ayaz Amir, a political commentator, was quoted as saying. I dont see that catalyst coming on the horizon.
The president has also received a political lifeline from a surprising source his long-time rival, former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif of the Pakistan Muslim League-N, the dispatch said. Until this month, Sharif had been seen as biding his time and waiting for Zardari to self-destruct so he could run for president in midterm elections.
But in a high-profile TV interview recently, Sharif struck a more statesmanlike chord. He said he did not support a midterm election or power-sharing formula. He warned that 'time is running out for democracy in Pakistan and that obsessive partisan competition was partly to blame.
A third potential source of trouble for the president, Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry, also seems less likely to pounce than he did just a few weeks ago. Analysts noted that the president has been careful not to antagonize the court and that the judiciary could also be victimized in any forcible change of government.
I dont think the Chief Justice wants to join hands with the army and bring Zardari down, Rifaat Hussain, a Professor of Strategic and Defence Studies at Quaid-i-Azam University, was quoted as saying. He knows that the judiciary can only be strong in a democracy, Hussain said.