Asif Ali Zardari
Asif Ali Zardari ( Urdu آصف علی زرداری; * July 26, 1955 in Karachi , Sindh ) is a Pakistani politician and was the eleventh President of Pakistan from 2008 to 2013 . He is the widower of Benazir Bhutto , the former Prime Minister of Pakistan, with whom he has been married since 1987 and has three children together.
Since December 30, 2007, he has been the deputy chairman of the Pakistani People's Party (PPP) and in this capacity takes over the duties of his son Bilawal as party chairman.
Life and political career
Zardari comes from a long-established wealthy family of the north Indian upper class, who are active in the construction sector and with cement works.
During his wife's second term, Zardari was a member of the National Assembly and Minister of the Environment . He was a senator until the Senate was dissolved by Pervez Musharraf in 1999.
In 1990 he was arrested on extortion charges for forcing Pakistani businessman Murtaza Bukhari to give him money. However, when his wife's party came to power in 1993, the charges were dropped.
In the last days of his wife's second term, shortly before the government was dissolved by then President Farooq Leghari , his brother-in-law Murtaza Bhutto was killed in an assassination attempt. In 1996, Zardari was arrested on suspicion of murder, but public pressure prevented the case from being fully investigated.
From 1997 to 2004 he was jailed on charges ranging from corruption to murder . In public, Zardari received the designation Mister 10% because of his obvious corruption . 10% refers to the amount he is alleged to have illegally earned from every project in the country. He was released on bail in November 2004, but was arrested again on December 21, 2004 after missing a hearing. He was also charged with conspiring to kill a judge and his son in 1996.
In August 2004, Zardari admitted to owning a large property worth £ 4.35 million in Surrey, England. He and his family had previously denied having real estate in England. The Pakistani authorities accused him of having acquired these properties with funds obtained through corruption. As a result, legal proceedings against Zardari are pending before the High Court of England and Wales . You were tried by the previous Pakistani government to trace the acquisition of the property and, if necessary, to seize it for the Pakistani state. In October 2006, Zardari's motion that challenged the jurisdiction of the court was dismissed.
Zardari suffers from diabetes, back problems and heart problems, for which he blames his 11 year imprisonment. According to a report by the psychologist Philip Saltiel, he also suffers from amnesia, emotional lability, depression and poor concentration. He claims that the allegations against him are essentially politically motivated. For years the lawyer Farooq H. Naek has acted as his defense lawyer, who also played an important role in his release. The Swiss examining magistrate Daniel Devaud collected evidence and a. to buy a diamond necklace to accuse Zardari of money laundering because of contacts with two Geneva companies . No proceedings were opened in Switzerland, but Swiss authorities blocked US $ 13.7 million in Swiss bank accounts , which Zardari and his wife had allegedly removed. In August 2008 the money was released again.
On December 30, 2007, after his wife was murdered, he was elected vice chairman of the Pakistani People's Party. In this role, Asif Ali Zardari took over the business of the party for his son Bilawal until he had completed his studies in 2015. Since then he has largely withdrawn from day-to-day political affairs and only appears rarely.
After the PPP won most of the seats in the parliamentary elections on February 18, 2008, it replaced the PML-Q Muslim League, which is close to President Musharraf , together with the PML-N of Nawaz Sharif as the ruling party. Zardari was initially considered a favorite for the office of prime minister. But since he had not won a mandate in the parliamentary elections, Yousaf Raza Gilani was elected Prime Minister.
On June 10, 2019, he and his sister were arrested in Islamabad after the relevant high court refused to grant bail. The allegations were of money laundering and corruption.
Asif Ali Zardari is a member of the Rotary Club and according to the Rotarians' motto “Service above self”, committed to the highest ethical and moral behavior.
2008 presidential election
At the beginning of August 2008, Asif Ali Zardari and Nawaz Sharif jointly announced the initiation of impeachment proceedings against Pervez Musharraf. Musharraf then announced his resignation on August 18, 2008. Four days after his resignation, Zardari was nominated by the PPP as a candidate for the election of the new president on September 6, 2008. The coalition partner PML-N initially only wanted to support Zardari's candidacy if the PPP were to speak out in favor of withdrawing the constitutional amendments of 2007, which granted the president special powers.
However, the dispute over the reinstatement of the constitutional judges who had been deposed by Musharraf led to a break in the coalition on August 25, 2008. On the same day, Nawaz Sharif named former Chief Justice Saeeduzzaman Siddiqui, a candidate of his own for the presidential election. The third candidate was Mushahid Hussain Syed , Secretary General of PML-Q, in the race for the presidency.
Zardari clearly won the presidential election on September 6, 2008 with 481 of 702 votes, only the provincial parliament of the Punjab voted by a majority for the PML-N candidate. His choice was already considered safe in advance, despite the corruption allegations and reports of alleged "severe mental disorders".
On September 9, 2008, Zardari was sworn in as the new president.
A visit by Asif Ali Zardari to the shrine of Sufi saint Muinuddin Chishti in Ajmer , India in April 2012 received worldwide attention . Although the visit had been announced as private, a meeting with the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in Delhi took place afterwards Both sides reaffirmed their will to re-intensify diplomatic relations , which had largely been on hold since the 2008 Mumbai attacks . Both the visit to the Sufi shrine and the conversation with the Indian prime minister were interpreted as Zardari's rejection of militant Islamism .
In the presidential election on July 30, 2013, to which Zardari did not run again, Mamnoon Hussain was elected as his successor. On September 8, 2013, Zardari resigned from the presidency.
literature
- Asif Ali Zardari , in: Internationales Biographisches Archiv 28/2013 from July 9, 2013, in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of the article freely available)
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Profiles: Asif Ali Zardari on BBC News
- ↑ Focus, September 1, 2008: The New Musharraf
- ↑ Swiss Want Bhutto indicted in Pakistan for Money Laundering in The New York Times
- ^ Spiegel online : Brutal, corrupt, mentally ill from August 26, 2008
- ↑ Bhutto's son, husband to be co-leaders of party on Reuters India
- ↑ Die Zeit: Pakistan: Triumph for Bhutto Party ( Memento of the original from January 18, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. dated February 19, 2008.
- ↑ Gillani confirmed as Prime Minister in Pakistan. In: Der Tagesspiegel. March 29, 2008, accessed February 11, 2017 .
- ^ Asif Ali Zardari: Former Pakistan president Zardari arrested. BBC News, June 9, 2019, accessed June 9, 2019 .
- ↑ Rotary Global History Fellowship ( Memento September 25, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ This is Rotary ( Memento June 28, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ CNN : Musharraf's resignation accepted , August 18, 2008 (accessed August 23, 2008).
- ↑ The press : Bhutto's widower wants to become Pakistan's president August 23, 2008 (accessed August 23, 2008).
- ^ Wiener Zeitung : Coalition in Pakistan burst on August 25, 2008, accessed on November 6, 2013.
- ↑ BBC News : Bhutto's widower wins presidency, September 6, 2008 (accessed September 6, 2008).
- ↑ Basler Zeitung : Will a Mentally Ill Pakistani President? of September 6, 2008 (accessed on September 6, 2008).
- ↑ Die Presse : Pakistan: Zardari sworn in as new President September 9, 2008 (accessed September 9, 2008).
- ↑ Pakistani leader in 'friendly' talks on visit to India. BBC News, April 8, 2012, accessed April 9, 2012 .
- ↑ Sandra Petermann: Pakistan's President Zardari in India: Thaw after years of the Ice Age? tagesschau.de, April 8, 2012, archived from the original on April 10, 2012 ; Retrieved April 9, 2012 .
- ↑ Pakistan's new president wants to stop drones. In: 20min.ch . July 30, 2013, accessed September 8, 2013 .
- ↑ Pakistan's head of state Zardari left office. In: The world . September 8, 2013, accessed September 8, 2013 .
| predecessor | Office | successor |
|---|---|---|
|
Muhammad Mian Soomro (acting) |
President of Pakistan 2008-2013 |
Mamnoon Hussain |
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Zardari, Asif Ali |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Pakistani politician |
| DATE OF BIRTH | July 26, 1955 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Karachi , Sindh |