Corrupts always return in South Asia

Self-proclaimed mentally insane and notorious corrupt Asif Ali Zardari, husband of Pakistan's former Prime Minister, Benazir Bhutto has finally emerged as the President of that troubled country, where pro and anti democratic forces are on continuous confrontation for decades. In fact, Pakistan's political luck was never good and each time, some bad elements rose in power, thus pushing the image of the entire nation into extreme jeopardy. But the recent episode of Zardari becoming the President is the greatest shame in the history of the country.

Asif once served as a member of the National Assembly, and he was at one point the Minister of Environment during his wife's second term as the Prime Minister (1993–1996). Initially he was very interested in the Finance Ministry, but Bhutto opted to put him in a non-revenue generating department instead, for obvious reason as late Bhutto was sure of the greedy habit of her spose.

Zardari was elected president of Pakistan, as Chief election commissioner Qazi Mohammad Farooq announced that "Asif Ali Zardari secured 281 votes out of the 426 valid votes polled in the parliament," In Sindh, Zardari had 62 of the 65 electoral votes while his two main opponents got zero votes; in North West Frontier Province Zardari got 56 votes against 5 by Siddiqui and one by Hussain; in Balochistan, 59 votes while Siddiqui and Hussain got 2 each. However, Zardari did not win the majority in the nation's biggest province, Punjab, where the PML-N's Siddiqui got a clear majority. BBC reported that Zardari "won 481 votes, far more than the 352 votes that would have guaranteed him victory."

Zardari was challenged by Justice (Retired) Saeeduzzaman Siddiqui, a former judge nominated by Nawaz Sharif's PML-N, and Mushahid Hussain Sayed, who was nominated by the PML-Q, which backed Musharraf. According to the Constitution of 1973 presently in vogue (but declared for major amendments by Zardari) the President of Pakistan, who must be a Muslim and a male, is elected by an electoral college composed of members of the two houses of parliament - the 342 seat lower house National Assembly and the 100 member upper house Senate, as well as members of the four provincial assemblies - Sindh, Punjab, North West Frontier and Balochistan. The assemblies have total of 1170 seats, but the number of electoral college votes is 702 since provincial assembly votes are counted on a proportional basis. The new president, who obtains the largest number of votes, will serve for five years as Pakistan's 11th president since 1956, when the country became an Islamic Republic, excluding acting presidents and CMLAs [Chief Martial Law Administrators] during times of military rule. Voting was in progress at the Parliament House, while the Senate members finished casting their votes.

Asif Ali Zardari, accused of money-laundering in a US Senate report on private banking and money laundering-laundering, spent several years in jail on charges of corruption.

He found himself in major trouble in 1990 when he was accused of tying a remote-controlled bomb to the leg of a businessman and sending him into a bank to withdraw money from his account as a pay-off.

However, he was whisked out of prison to be made a minister after the PPP won elections in 1993.

In 1996, he was arrested under the Maintenance of Public Order Ordinance. He found himself charged with the murder of Mir Murtaza Bhutto, his wife's brother.

He was later charged, along with his wife, and convicted in a kickbacks scam involving a Swiss company, SGS.

But a mistrial was declared by Pakistan's Supreme Court following a major scandal involving the accountability bureau and the judge who had issued the verdict.

His last prison sentence lasted eight years until 2004, during which time he says he was tortured.

It ended as the then General Musharraf was engaged in protracted negotiations with Benazir Bhutto, then in self-imposed exile, for some form of political reconciliation.

And, what is happening in the tiny country in South Asia? One of the two former Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina, who faces series of graft and extortion charges is now in United States, who was released on bail under executive order, and she did not have the guts to face the trial right inside her own country. When the millitary controlled interim government in Dhaka released Hasina, many raised eye borrows and such release was the indication of return of the old corrupts in Bangladesh's administration. Recently the same government turned reluctant when another former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia also came out of jail, being released on bail by the higher judiciary of the country.

Since the army seized power in January 2007 and installed a technocratic interim government, it has tried and failed to end an era of dominance by Bangladesh's two squabbling former prime ministers, Khaleda Zia of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and Sheikh Hasina Wajed of the Awami League.

Yet, after a year in jail on charges of corruption, Bangladesh's battling begums are back. On September 11th the government freed Khaleda Zia on bail. Five days later, it cleared legal hurdles for the return of Sheikh Hasina from America, where she went for medical treatment following her release on parole in June. She is expected back in Bangladesh early next month.

Both leaders still face charges. But prosecutors are unlikely to take action against them without the approval of the government, which is no longer trying to bring their political careers to an end. So, barring an extraordinary upset, one of them will be Bangladesh's next prime minister.

It is an astonishing volte-face. The begums alternated in power from 1991-2007 and are blamed for the fiercely antagonistic, corrupt politics that led the army to step in. First it tried to exile them and create a "third force" in Bangladeshi politics; then it jailed them and tried to split their parties, hoping that new leaders might emerge. But the begums' parties are held together by two things: patronage and personality cult. They are unviable without their leaders: hence the BNP's offer to Khaleda Zia this week to lead the party "for life". She declined.

The good news is that Bangladeshis, for the first time since 2001, will get the chance to elect a government. For once it will be almost impossible to rig the poll. The election commission has purged 12m duplicate, deceased or otherwise bogus names from voter rolls. On September 22nd it will unveil a firm date for the election, long promised for December. But the bad news is, Bangladeshi voters will have two options to pick the bad from the worst or worst from the bad. In both cases, the country will once again enter the era of massive corruption and looting of public money by using political might. Moreover, Bangladesh's aspiration of entering the new age of multi-party democracy and democracy within parties will bogg into the Bay of Bengal atleast for a distant future. Possibly it will be time again for international organizations like Transparency International to place Bangladesh once again at the top of the most corrupt nations for the sixth time. Those who care about good democracy will surely get hurt at this latest episode of political carricature in Bangladesh.

And, the alarming news is, with the possible return of corrupts in power, Bangladesh is already witnessing rise of Islamist millitancy alongside the sudden muscle flexing of leftists. Possibly this will be the new avenue where Islamists and Leftists will get the free style license to exhibit worst form of notoriety, thus leaving potential threat to local, regional and international peace.

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Corrupts always return in South Asia

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