Friends of Democratic Zardari

ISLAMABAD - Having hardly any precedent in history, President Asif Ali Zardaris personal staff includes over a dozen of his close friends working in the Presidency without any formal notification, in addition to the Presidents Public Secretariat, and extended political advisory group.
According to well-placed sources, most of Zardaris loyal friends are continuing their association with him begun since his days in jail. Later on these friends were calling the shots in Zardari House at F-8/3 Sector in the capital until their beloved friend became President
Although there is no official notification of these appointments in the Presidency nor do they draw any salary, the Presidents friends are occupying different offices under a well-defined division of work. One of them deals with the bureaucratic placements, while the other handles the media on behalf of the President, the sources added.
We are here with our friend President Zardari to assist him in discharging his duties purely in good faith as well as in public service, one of the friends told this scribe in an off the record chat some times back. None of us is occupying any public office and no one is drawing any salary from the Presidencys account, he added while explaining these private placements in the apex public office of the President. We are friends of the President and servants to the public without undermining any civil servants right, he maintained.
Critics, especially in the opposition, however alleged that the Presidents personal staff having friends placed privately in the Presidency was not according to the norms of political dispensation. These postings without any official record were also against the democratic principles and practices, an opposition leader observed requesting not to be named.