But while in Pakistan, Zardari had only been bad news for Benazir. Not surprisingly therefore, when Benazir returned from exile to fight the general election, they agreed Zardari should stay away. Aware that he had become a divisive figure in the party and a public relations liability, they also decided he should not stand for the national assembly. After leaving Pakistan, Zardari had been holed up in a swanky apartment in New York. Just before Benazir flew to Karachi in October, he moved to her Dubai residence.

But in a strange twist of fate, even as elections in Pakistan have been postponed to February due to Benazir’s assassination, Zardari has taken control of her party through what some have dubbed ‘a grotesque medieval drama’. Not everyone was fooled though by the charade of the ‘will’ Benazir is said to have entrusted to a Filipino maid before leaving Dubai or the anointment of 19-year-old Bilawal, a history student at Oxford, as PPP chief and the self-effacing Makhdoom Amin Fahim as the party’s prime ministerial candidate.

If the PPP emerges triumphant in February, it is Zardari who will be the power behind the throne. Asked by NDTV’s Barkha Dutt if he would seek to enter the national assembly later, Zardari replied: “Who knows what the future brings?”

As some close aides of Benazir, such as her political secretary Naheed Khan and hatchet man Rehman Malik, left the ancestral Bhutto home in Larkana this week, reportedly in anger and disgust, stories began circulating of fresh shenanigans by Zardari. But others, such as media advisors Farahnaz Ispahani (the wife of US-based political analyst Husain Haqqani) and former Herald magazine editor Sherry Rahman, stood by the widower.

... contd.