This is Asif Ali Zardari, President of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan: Career, ideology...

The Indian government, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has confirmed that his military has carried out six strikes on what the government describes as “terror camps” in "Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir from where terrorist attacks against India have been planned and directed."

These attacks come after 26 tourists were killed in India-controlled Kashmir in late April. Modi’s government claims that it has evidence that the gunman was “Pakistan-based” and accuses the Pakistani government of failing to take action to prevent similar attacks—and as a result, justifying the strikes on May 6, which emerging reports show killed civilians.

Though Zardari has not commented on the attacks on tourists, he has rejected arguments from the Indian government that Zardari’s government provides support to the Pakistan Taliban and Baloch Liberation Army, which New Delhi accuses of carrying out other attacks in Kashmir.

The return to politics of Asif Ali Zardari

President of Pakistan, Asif Ali Zardari, took office in March 2024. Within the country’s governing system, the President has control over the armed forces and is thus considered the Head of State, while the Prime Minister is regarded as the Head of Government. Zaradi was elected president for the second time by the Pakistani Parliament in March 2024. Opposition parties have called attention to his past scandals and have attacked the legality of his election. The election was controversial as it came at the same time that former Prime Minister Imran Khan was removed from power in 2022, and subsequently jailed.

Zardari’s national profile within Pakistani politics was elevated in the late 1980s when he married Benazir Bhutto, the daughter of former Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in December 2007, while campaigning for elections that would be held the next month. At the time, she was the head of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and had served as Prime Minister from 1993 to 1996.

Asif is a Pakistan People’s Party member and has been a dramatic and controversial figure since the early 1990s. He was arrested and jailed in 1991 after being accused of involvement in the kidnapping and extortion of a British businessman.

A few years later, he would be arrested based on suspicions that he was involved in the killing of his brother-in-law, Murtaza Bhutto, who was seen as a top rival in the power struggle over the PPP. The New York Times reported in 1996 on the arrest of Zardari, who was reportedly detained “while trying to flee the country,” after he had been “widely accused of enriching himself from kickbacks on Government contracts.” These accusations of violence and corruption led to the downfall of Benazir Bhutto’s tenure as Prime Minister, after three years in the role.

The couple was convicted in 1998 on money laundering charges, and Zardari faced additional charges related to the killing of Murtaza. These charges were eventually dropped after an amnesty law was passed in Pakistan. Zardari would remain in exile until the death of his wife in 2007, when he returned as co-chair of the PPP, alongside his son Bilawal Bhutto Zardari. In 2008, he would be elected by the parliament to serve as President, a role he maintained until 2013.

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