It all depends on politicians' behaviour: a serving Gen

LONDON (Agencies) - A Pakistan Army's General has said that the behaviour of politicians would determine the eventuality of the Army again coming into power.

"It all depends on how the politicians behave," one general told The Sunday Times. "The Pakistan Army is like a beautiful black stallion. Ride it and it will serve you well. Kick it and it will buck." Waiting in the wings for President and PPP Co-Chairman Asif Ali Zardari to make a slip is PML-N Quaid Nawaz Sharif, whose party now forms the main Opposition party. Although he says he feels "sad and betrayed" by Zardari, he vows: "We won't destabilise the government. The country is too vulnerable."

Nawaz's fear is that if it all falls apart there will not be another election, but a return to the Army.

Saturday's presidential elections saw Asif Ali Zardari overwhelmingly voted in as head of state. Zardari whose favourite film is The Godfather will now take centre stage as he is sworn in as the country's most powerful President.

"Not even a novelist with the most fertile imagination could have come up with this one," said a political analyst.

"Nobody could have imagined this a year ago," Makhdoom Amin Fahim, who led the PPP while Benazir Bhutto was in exile and is still its parliamentary leader, told The Sunday Times. "It wasn't even a nightmare."

"After Benazir he (Zardari) is the next target," said a government minister. "Being President is the only way we can give him the protection he needs."

Others point out that the Presidency is the one post in the Pakistan administration that does not require the holder to disclose his assets.

According to The Times, promised by Zardari that Amin Fahim would be named prime minister, he now sits alone in his parliamentary lodgings, thinking of what might have been.

"I've given my life to the party," he said. "The PPP's first national convention was in my father's house, my brothers were jailed, our people killed. Not a single minister has called me since being sworn in, and they won't take my calls because they are afraid if they talk to me they will lose their jobs."

He added: "Zardari is the luckiest man in the world. He got everything on a platter - the party, the government, a prime minister of his own choosing and now President. Let's see what he does with it. The impression people have of him is not a happy one."

"I fear a return to the politics of revenge of the 1980s and 1990s," said Senator Mushahid Hussain, one of the two candidates who ran against Zardari for President.

"He's (Zardari) changed," said Information Minister Sherry Rehman. "He's been through trial by fire both in terms of prison and his wife's death."

His media team are eager to portray him as what they call "a man of the federation".