Benazir Bhutto widower Asif Ali Zardari set to replace Pervez Musharraf (Mr. 10% on the rise)

Times of London ^ | 08/23/08 | Zahid Hussain

[TigerLikesRooster]

Benazir Bhutto widower Asif Ali Zardari set to replace Pervez Musharraf

Zahid Hussain in Islamabad

Asif Ali Zardari, the controversial widower of Benazir Bhutto, became the front-runner to replace Pervez Musharraf as Pakistan’s President yesterday when he was nominated to run in an election scheduled for next month.

Ms Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) nominated Mr Zardari unanimously four days after Mr Musharraf resigned. Mr Musharraf’s departure deprived the West of its key Muslim ally in the War on Terror.

“Zardari thanked Pakistan People’s Party of which he is the co-chairman and said he will announce his decision within the next 24 hours,” Sherry Rehman, the Information Minister, told reporters. “Presidency is the right of our party and that is why party lawmakers asked Zardari to run for this post.”

Earlier, the election commission chose September 6 as the date for the presidential poll, which is carried out by the national Parliament’s two houses and the four provincial assemblies.

[TigerLikesRooster]

Hmm.. it does not look good. IIRC, he was responsible for the undoing of his wife's administration, because of his rampant corruption. He was called Mr. 10% at the time(reportedly, he got 10% cut from all gov dealings.)

[TigerLikesRooster]

Mr. 10%, ping!

[Roy Tucker]

With the elevation, he can now change his name to Mr 20%.

[Mad_Tom_Rackham]

I give them five years before they have a full blown islamic theocracy ala Iran.

[Bosco]

You think it will take that long? I don’t.

[Sax]

First order of business - the reminder of 2001 & why Pakistan was considered a partner rather than a target, and that the re-evaluation of these terms is at our discretion. He does not necessarily inherit pre-existing terms as a new administration.

[Mad_Tom_Rackham]

I have a really bad feeling about this. IMO, there’s going to be a nuclear war over Pakistan.

[flaglady47]

Well, the Bush Admin shot itself in its own foot. They were encouraging Mrs. Bhutto to return to Pakistan to do some ridiculous “shared” gov’t with Mushareff, and supposedly her party would then do Bush’s bidding and come down harder on the terrorists hiding in the ungoverned territories. So now we have lost Mushareff who at least made some attempts to go after terrorists, and he is being replaced by a Party that rather than helping us in the fight against terrorism will do nothing other than accommodate them and eventually, sensing how weak that gov’t will be, the fundamentalist Muzzies will overthrow this gov’t and take over Pakistan. And they will then control the nukes. Wonderful political moves the Bush Admin made, weren’t they.

[Sax]

Apparently we already control their nukes. However, Russia, Pakistan, and any other antsy-in-their-pantsy crap hole is taking full advantage of the lull preceeding the impending change in US administrations.

[popdonnelly]

I wish him all the luck in the World, because he’s gonna need it.