"Is he a new Mr. Zardari, or is he the Zardari of the past?" asked Rasul Baksh Rais, a political scientist at Lahore University of Management Sciences. "That question is not yet settled, or the question of will he rise to the occasion and lead Pakistan out of crisis."
Rais and others see an opening, in the aftermath of the Marriott bombing, for Zardari to turn public outrage to his advantage, using it to rally the nation behind the fight against Islamic militants. Until now, opponents of that fight have succeeded in painting it as America's war, not Pakistan's.
But whether Zardari has the ability to rally such fervor is uncertain. His wife had charisma to spare, the ability to rouse thousands of people through impassioned speeches and soaring rhetoric that, if not always based in reality, rarely failed to inspire. Zardari is seen as more of a backroom dealer, a political insider who lacks mass appeal.
"It's a battle of hearts and minds," said author Ahmed Rashid. "He should go to the people. The party should be galvanized. He should meet with the opposition. There should be a consideration of a national government at this stage because of the crisis, and they should unite on one platform, which should be an anti-terror platform, which should be portrayed as a struggle to save Pakistan, not a struggle to save America."
Not all the problems facing Zardari are of his making.
The economy has been languishing for months. Foreign investment is down. Food prices are up. Frequent power outages have soured people's moods.
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Cozying up to Palin
On the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly meeting last week, Zardari was busy trying to drum up international aid for his battered nation. Yet as Pakistanis still reeled from one of the worst terrorist attacks in their country's history, he also found time for a chat of questionable propriety with Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, in which he openly admired her looks and said he might insist on giving her a hug.
Such coziness with the U.S. is unlikely to endear him to a populace already inclined to view his government as a lap dog of Washington.
Zardari, analysts say, needs to concentrate on convincing his people that going hard after Islamic militants, such as those who carried out the attack on the Marriott, is in Pakistan's own interest. Those people include some of the military rank and file, who find it difficult to fight their fellow Pakistanis. In a country that has spent half its existence under military rule, Zardari, as a civilian leader, still maintains only tenuous control of the army.
"If the military doesn't do what he wants it to do, he doesn't have sovereignty," said Stephen Cohen, an expert on Pakistan at the Brookings Institution in Washington. "He's been elected president, but that's meaningless."
At the same time, Zardari has had to convince the United States of his commitment to eliminating extremism, particularly from the Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters who have set up bases along the lawless border with Afghanistan. The U.S. incursions from Afghanistan into Pakistan have added to the tension between Washington and Islamabad and worsened anti-American sentiment here.
It will take a leader of stature and savvy to unknot these difficulties and pull the country together. The jury is out as to whether Zardari is the man to do it.
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henry.chu@latimes.com
