I did this profile for Tatler magazine in 1990, when Zardari was "First Gentleman" of Pakistan, if that is not pushing the definition too far....

By Bruce Palling


Even though political power in Pakistan has a long and dishonourable tradition of sprouting from the barrel of a gun, there is still no doubt that Benazir Bhutto is the most influential person in the country. Indeed, before her election as Prime Minister in 1988, the definition of Pakistani democracy could have been One Man, One Gun. Since independence from Britain in 1947, Pakistan has been ruled either by no-nonsense military dictators or by the democratically elected Bhutto family. It may be a dreadfully chauvinist place, and Benazir may be a woman, but she is still a Bhutto. And that is what counts.

Her rich, feudal family dabbled in politics even under the British and her grandfather was knighted for his services to the Raj. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, her charismatic father, was Prime Minister for six years until he was ousted in a coup masterminded by General Zia-ul-Haq. The family mystique was further enhanced in 1979 when her father was executed on trumped-up political charges, despite being offered clemency if he asked for it. At Oxford, his daughter Benazir owned a yellow MGB and stepped out with unsuitable young men, but she never forgot that she was being groomed for a political career in Pakistan by her strict but doting father.

Having established her political credentials under Zia’s dictatorship by undergoing house arrest and even solitary confinement, Benazir needed one thing before she presented herself to the electorate – a husband. Enter Asif Ali Zardari.

Publicity released at the time of his arranged engagement to Benazir portrayed Asif as a prominent socialite businessman who owned a polo team (The Zardari Four) and hailed from a similar feudal background to that of the illustrious Bhuttos. The engagement photographs showed a stiff, good-looking man in a suit with aviator spectacles and a flourishing moustache – a picture of discreet modernity and respectability –the perfect fit for Pakistan’s most glamorous unmarried woman. Her married her in 1987, then fathered a son. As it turned out, in a country as ruthlessly male chauvinist as Pakistan, the fact that she had a boy helped ensure victory.
Within a matter of months, the Zardari family was seized upon by the opposition as a synonym for what the Pakistanis call cronyism and corruption. The press dubbed him ‘Mr 10 per cent”, referring to the size of his alleged commissions on all major deals. There is no proof to this improbable claim, however. 

There were similar mutterings when Asif’s father, Hakim Ali Zardari, was elected an MP and appointed to the lucrative position of the Public Accounts Committee. A brother-in-law also quietly emerged as head of the Karachi Development Authority, which is involved in complicated decisions about zoning regulations and land allocation. The Zardari name may not be one to conjure with in the West, but it is an obsessional topic in Pakistan. On one of his increasingly frequent visits to London, Asif’s father recounted a story to a British captain of industry. ‘Three years ago when Benazir’s aunt contacted my family and I agreed to give my son Asif’s hand in marriage, my family said “Hakim, you are the stupidest man in Pakistan.” They came to this conclusion because she was a controversial opposition politician in a military dictatorship. Now that she is Prime Minister, do you know what they all say? That I am the wisest man in Pakistan.’

“HE IS A BIT OF A BUCK…”

While I was boning up in my Islamabad hotel room on a nineteenth century account of the nomadic Baluch tribe, from which Asif nominally hails (‘The Bilochi is a general favourite. He is a bit of a buck…’) an aide from the Prime Minister’s department knocked on my hotel-door and escorted me to a black Mercedes which crept around the block and up the nearby hill to the Prime Minister’s residence. Until Benazir moved into Sindh House, this was where legislators and senior civil servants from Sindh province would receive instructions from whichever dictator was ruling the country. The entire compound is surrounded by a high brick wall with sentry posts placed at intervals and armed guards.

We arrived at the entrance to a pale brick mansion with a horizontal spread of patios and wide windows. It was the sort of thoroughly modern pile that would make the Duke and Duchess of York feel at home. But hat it lacked in taste, it made up for with its spectacular view over Islamabad.
Asif was lounging contentedly in a swivel executive chair at a cluttered desk with four telephones. He wore a Lanvin polo-short and jodhpurs with one high-booted leg casually crossed over the other on the desk. His only other visible adornments were Porsche aviator dark glasses and a gold Bulgari watch, one of the half-dozen or so types of trinket he complains come his way all the time. The overall sartorial effect hovered dangerously between that of a Subcontinental Biggles and Indiana Jones gone soft. He had just returned from a quick gallop in the miniature polo field he had constructed in the garden of the official residence. ‘I don’t usually speak to the press…I must be an idiot to give this interview.’

He doesn’t have a pukka Oxbridge accent, but can launch into a passable imitation of one when he sneers at what ‘the members of the Sindh Club in Karachi think of Asif Zardari’. He is at home with small talk as the most artful diplomatic envoy, only he gives no impression of putting on an act. Asif may not speak to the press very often, but he exudes charm and friendliness. I had been warned that he came on with a mock-rustic act, the little boy lost who would rather be back on the farm.

“I HAVE NEVER CLAIMED TO BE ANYTHING BUT A SAVAGE FROM THE WEST..”

He is definitely not a wallflower or a wimp but in public at least, like Denis Thatcher, he knows his place, which is usually on the side table with the local dignitaries rather than next to Benazir. During an official visit to Britain last year, Benazir was given a small private dinner party in London by one of her oldest Oxford friends. Before the guests departed, they all signed the visitors’ book. The first entry of the night was ‘Benazir Bhutto…Prime Minister of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, Government House, Islamabad.’ Her husband simply wrote ‘ Asif Ali Zardari - a nobody’.

Many of the Sindh feudals I met in Islamabad prefer to believe this to be the literal truth. One government minister said to me over dinner that ‘When one thinks of the Baluch chieftains of Pakistan, the Zardaris don’t exactly spring to mind.’ Others were more blatant in their bad-mouthing, saying the Zardaris were merely camel-herders until some time this century.

Asif laughs at the critics who complain about his social origins. ‘Look, I have never claimed to be anything but a savage from the west. My family happens to be Baluch but it means nothing, nothing at all. My father is the chieftain of the tribe, but I have never even used the surname or the honorific of chief – I don’t really support it. We migrated from Baluchistan 300 or 400 years ago- it was a long time ago – we are basically Sindhis now.’ Asif spent a brief time at a boarding school in Quetta and a Karachi grammar school, then joined a minor army school. ‘My eyes gave up, so I did a diploma in business studies at the Centre for Economic and Business Studies in Paddington.’ He enjoyed himself, playing squash and going to discos with European and Pakistani friends. Then there was an unwelcome visit.

‘My father came one day and said I would have to come back because he couldn’t spare me. What is education? That you can spell and write a word – the rest is what you learn every day through living. So I came back after two years. One Friday I was in London and the next weekend I was on one of my farms- a place called Veeprakash – and we had no electricity there. It was late evening and so hot we couldn’t sit inside the house so I got somebody to move my charpal (string bed) to the mango plantation outside. The winds were blowing, one of the mangoes dropped on my head and I looked up at God and said, “Such is life- just a week ago I was having a good time in London and here I am in the middle of nowhere.”’

After five years on the farm, Asif headed off to the more lucrative pastures of Karachi, where he was involved in the family construction business. His father was a small-time businessman who also owned the Bambino Cinema, the smartest one in town. Rumour has it that this is where he first saw Benazir and decided on the spot, that he would like to marry her. This almost tallies with his own version. ‘I said to my father, “why don’t you get me married to Benazir?” he said “all right, let’s look into it,” and we proposed. The families remained in limbo for three years and then it was a yes.’ Benazir gave her consent after she was stung by a bee in Windsor Great Park while Asif was watching polo. He dropped everything and took her to a doctor and this excessive concern finally convinced her to take the plunge with this virtual stranger.

When they married, Benazir was still an opposition politician. Less than a year later, in 1988, following the death of General Zia in a mysterious plane crash, Benazir was elected Prime Minister, and it was this which radically changed her husband’s status.
I had first seen Asif Zardari at a reception with Benazir in the capital of Islamabad. An all-male cabal of MPs and officials were laughing and fawning over him and he was enjoying himself immensely. Embracing a steady stream of supplicants, he was slapping their backs and joking as surrounding guests looked on with the appearance of servile devotion.

One shrewd observer of the snobbish Pakistan social scene explained to me that this was clearest evidence yet that Asif was a power to be reckoned with. ‘Just after they were married, you would see only the national politicians and businessmen hanging about him in public. Now, it’s them plus these rustic types from the Provinces and you know for sure they wouldn’t waste their time with him unless they thought it was worth their trouble.’

‘I try not to be aware of my position,’ Asif explained. ‘I try to act normally. I am proud of my wife’s achievements but there are none that I could claim for myself. One can’t really think about it without a little humour. I never expected this to happen. As far as I was concerned General Zia was in no mood to die. All these generals live for a very long time. As far as he was concerned, she was his enemy, so that was a tricky position and it required a lot of guts.’

‘I WAS NEVER SALARY-CLASS”

Asif veered between saying he couldn’t care less about what the press or public say about him, to admitting it hurts to see the wild accusation against him and Benazir. One of the many stories spread by the Pakistani opposition was that Asif used to beat her. ‘Me beat her?’ he laughs. ‘If General Zia and his army of hundreds of thousands couldn’t control her, how do they imagine little old me would dare to do such a thing?’ He hands me one of the more lurid scandal rags, Weekly Facts International, which is run by opposition politicians in Punjab. The front page story clumsily claims that ‘The Bhutto and the Zardari families are learnt to have begun transferring their bank deposits in Swiss and other European banks to Senegal and Brunei Darus-salam’ because of fears about the confidentiality of numbered accounts in Zurich. Other headlines scream, ‘Bhuttos and Zardaris are transferring wealth to foreign banks’, and ‘Corruption, commissions, kickbacks’. ‘I don’t do anything about it – I just let it pass. If you react, it gives it more importance,’ says Asif.

‘When I got engaged, there were 4,000 or so guests at my house and they sat in one compound, so at least I had a house big enough to accommodate 4,000 people. I was playing polo before I came into power. I was never salary-class - if you are salary class, what money can you make? None. You can hardly look after your family on a salary.’ This sounds outrageous but ‘salary class’ in Pakistan means not having enough money to buy your own house or travel abroad.

Despite what Asif says, lack of funds has never deterred ambitious families from entering politics in Pakistan – for this is the fastest way to amass a fortune, providing your timing is right and the army doesn’t spoil it by staging a coup. But nobody in Pakistan has ever quite understood the difference between patronage and corruption –the whole place functions according to whom you know, even down to getting a telephone installed. Only a simpleton would rely on the normal functioning of the bureaucracy to get anything done at all. Asif does not deny that corruption is a way of life in Pakistan. ‘I think corruption is around – yes, you can’t deny that there is corruption –but it is in the lowest field, fixing people with jobs, favours. There are certain governmental departments that are very corrupt but it’d been a phenomenon with all Third World countries – all developing countries. It is the easiest thing to get at the Prime Minister by putting the blame on the husband. I am accused of doing things that I haven’t even dreamt of.’

TO THE BHUTTO HQ IN LAKARNA

In order to observe Pakistan’s first family in action, I headed off with the entourage to Lakarna, the location of the Bhutto family estates deep in Sindh. Benazir and Asif, accompanied by their two children, two Filipino nannies and a doctor, flew off in a Falcon executive jet, while the rest of the staff, including myself, fought to keep up in an ancient air force Fokker Friendship. Arriving at the Bhutto town house in Lakarna, there was a frenzied scramble to push through hundreds of spectators into the several acres of stunning gardens surrounding their Fifties mansion. Apart from two large Ibex skulls and horns tacked onto the entrance, it had all the charm of a village hall. A gaggle of searchlights on the roof and barred windows gave it the feeling of a fortress. Our visit was on the eleventh anniversary of the execution of Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Benazir’s martyred father. It was a frenetic schedule. 

Twenty-four hours were to include a dinner for several hundred party-supporters in the garden, a public rally, the opening of a youth centre and the inauguration of a new train – the Zulfikar Express. For all but the last six hours of this time, there was no sign of Asif. By accident, I bumped into Benazir on her way back from the rally. She explained that Asif hadn’t gone with her because he had been up until half-past-one in the morning, helping her add some vernacular authenticity to her speech in Sindhi, which she does not speak nearly as fluently as English.

Just before noon, a sleepy Asif, reeking of gentleman’s scent, lumbered down the corridor rubbing his collar bone. ‘I’m terribly sorry but it is an old polo injury of mine that plays up occasionally,’ he explained. No sooner had he emerged from his bedroom than a group of special-interest pleaders, who had been allowed inside, rushed towards him with applications for jobs for their relatives. He might not be prime minister, but he is certainly treated as a useful substitute by the masses.
The next destination was uncertain – it was either Karachi or Nawabshah, the Zardari stronghold. Asif told me he wasn’t sure which place we would visit first. ‘Well,’ replied a protocol officer tartly, ‘he wouldn’t know any way – it is up to the Prime Minister, not her husband.’

GUNS AND DRUGS IN KARACHI

Karachi is the economic and criminal headquarters of Pakistan – it is awash with guns and drug-money, and has spawned what is known as ‘Kalashnikov Culture’. There is also political violence on a grand scale. More than 20 people were killed in one 10-hour period last February and since then, as handful of victims dies every day. Benazir and Asif’s personal stronghold here is a huge, modern mansion on a barren stretch of land in Clifton, the most fashionable suburb. My driver told me that before the buildings appeared, ‘Sir, it was a bald basin.’ Their pile is known unofficially as Bilalawal House. It was surrounded by hideous neo-classical mansions with unwieldy satellite dishes stuck on their roofs. There were piles of bricks and sand everywhere and electricity pylons rather than trees adorned the horizon. 

The front garden was full of coils of barbed wire, sentry boxes and a brick wall, which, rather incongruously, was home to the two Shetland ponies Asif imported from Australia.
The entrance hall was crammed with two dozen chairs and buzzed with conversation between aides, cronies and confidants. Everyone sprang to attention and remained silent when Asif casually strolled inside, dressed in yet another polo shirt and low-cut riding boots. ‘You want to see how I spend my time here? Lets go.’ He headed towards a smoked-glass white Mercedes 500, and gestured for me to sit in the front seat, which was already occupied by a Heckler and Koch machine pistol plus another lethal looking hand gun. ‘Relax, they’re on safety,’ he assured me as we roared past a sentry box followed by a jeep load of goons bristling with rifles.

The Mercedes, which also had the useful attribute of being bulletproof, was one of a his-and-hers pair that the Sheikh of Abu Dhabi gave them and, much to Asif’s regret, would have to be handed back if Benazir ever lost power. While we swerved in and out of the traffic, Asif spelt out his dream of solving the water crisis in Pakistan by laying down a hi-tech carpet to prevent seepage along the 22,000 miles of the country’s canals. He also told me that a huge programme to provide fresh water to the slum area of towns that voted for Benazir was all his own work. ‘I got all the local authorities in the same room and bashed their heads together until they agreed to start work on it.’ The business elite may curse the project for disrupting the commercial centre of Karachi, but most residents seem happy that something positive was being done with their municipal funds for a change. The business community was also buzzing about a story in a respected Karachi news magazine alleging that the Zardari family had put pressure on a local hotelier to take over his chain. Asif was furious and told me he was going to break his rule and sue them.

However, the real objective of our journey was to drop in on an old family friend of Asif – an illegal exporter of endangered wildlife who sought his help in solving a Byzantine land dispute. At the lights he spotted a bespectacled man in a neighbouring car. ‘See that guy? He wouldn’t give me the time of day a few years back, but now he can’t wait to be my best friend.’ Asif was enjoying himself, pointing out his new multi-million pound building project in the middle of town – Trade Towers – which will have the distinction of being the first building in the Subcontinent with a vehicle lift to the rooftop car park.
Later that day, Muhammud Razziq Awan, Asif’s personal gunman, dropped by to take me to the dusty polo ground where Asif was mucking about with members of thre Karachi Polo Club. He may once have had a two handicap but it is presently zero and, although he has polo cups to show for his past exploits, these days he is lucky to play more than once a month. After the makeshift match, Fakir Syed Aitzazuddin, his polo teacher, talked sadly of the lack of time that this most important pupil puts into his game. ‘My ambition is to get him on to the back of a horse for a month but he never has the time,’ he complained.

I mentioned to him the story that Asif had imported 40 horses from Australia and a dozen of them had starved to death because he couldn’t find any buyers for them. Fakir Syed Aitzazuddin laughed and wagged his finger. ‘This is all lying. You have been talking to one of my cousins, who is a damned fool. You see, she is in the horse breeding business herself and does not like the competition.’ This turned out to be the case, and from the vast amount of paperwork Fakir displayed, none of the horses appeared to have died. Asif said that he only owned four of them anyway. Fakir confirmed this. Before he drove off in his Mercedes, Asif revealed his ultimate dream. He wanted to build a polo ground in Islamabad, but had run into problems with the local authorities because it would have meant axing some trees around the city lake. [The other dream that Zardari mentioned to me at the time was how much he coveted the American consul general’s colonial mansion in Karachi.]

NAWABSHAH, THE ZARDARI STRONGHOLD

The next morning, after my luggage had been probed for bombs, Benazir, Asif and I flew to Nawabshah, the Zardari seat. On the journey, I sent a note to Benazir asking if she would mind breaking her own rule and give me an interview about her marriage. She laughed and handed it back to me with the scrawled reply, ‘I will have to take ‘permission’ from my husband.’ ‘This is a joke,’ Asif shouted over the noise of the rotors. She looked relaxed in his company and forced him to wear ear-mufflers to cut out the noise. Two miles below us, the landscape looked like the worst Badlands in the American West – dry river beds and sand dunes – until we came down at the oasis of Nawabshah. The Zardari residence is not particularly grand – a large U-shaped bungalow behind high, iron gates on the outskirts of Nawabshah, a non-descript town. Once we were safely inside, there was no obtrusive security, just a handful of ancient family retainers, some wearing solid gold watches given to them by visiting Gulf sheikhs. For once, Benazir dispensed with the headscarf, which she wears to appease Muslim fundamentalists. Even here, there were local politicians to chat with, while the newly appointed Chief Minister of Sindh province hovered in the background. Finally, she saw them off and we sat on some cane furniture in the inner corridor of the house.

Benazir looked exhausted and refused to have any photographs taken. She said again that asking Asif’s permission to talk about their marriage was only half a joke because she has never done so before. While she adhered strictly to the fasting law of Ramadan, Asif sat cross legged on the sofa downing his lunch. She does not exude power or appear arrogant and was almost nervous as she explained that despite all the pressures, they have a satisfactory family life. She showed signs of genuine relief when I said that even the cattiest of her opponents conceded that she loves her husband. ‘There were these dreadful rumours a year ago that we had difficulties. There were wild stories that I was unhappy, that there were other affairs of the heart and that Asif used violence against me. I used to laugh at it and tell him these stories go in one ear and out the other, but it used to upset him.’
Asif looked up from his plate and said, ‘It still does.’

‘I do love my husband very much – don’t I darling?’ she said as she leant over and touched him on the shoulder. She was less positive in her defence of arranged marriages, merely stating that Pakistan was still a very traditional society. ‘Basically, Asif is a fakir – darling, don’t look so upset. A fakir is a person who would be happy sitting in a mud-hut with a stick. Asif was born under the Leo sign and that is what he is like – a lion who only gets restless when he can’t spend enough time in a cave with his mate and his cubs. It is a delicate task because of the life I lead but I am grateful to God that my marriage has been a success. Ultimately, how two people meet is not as important as whether they are compatible and willing to adjust.’ She denied that she is always comparing people with her father, whom she worshipped.

‘I am much happier as a person now,’ Benazir explained. ‘I had such an intense family life before that in a way I was lost until I married and had the warmth and security of my own family.’ She conceded that the Zardari family is far more feudal than her own and that her values are more liberal than Asif’s because of her western education.

WHAT ABOUT MY SUGAR MILLS?

After Benazir jetted back to Islamabad, I stayed on to see more of Asif’s feudal spoils. The most impressive was a six-mile canal, which he had ordered to be built (using government funds) about 15 miles from Nawabshah. Complete with a name-board saying it was the ‘Bilalawal Zardari Junior Canal’, it will transform the parched land around it for thousands of ordinary villagers. As we strolled around the banks of the project, Asif looked proud that through his connections he could pull this scheme off. ‘God, it makes me really pleased to see this. Who cares what the members of the Sindh Club say about me? This is what really counts.’

As we trundled through the countryside, crowds stopped his jeep to offer salaams. Suddenly he turned to me and said, ‘You know, you are really cruel – why don’t you ask me about the four or five sugar mills I am supposed to have bought? How can I respond to these stories unless you ask me?’ he smiled. The story doing the rounds was that Asif’s business associates have been given permission to build these sugar mills, which give a huge return because of the nationwide shortage of refined sugar. Asif admits that some of the directors are his friends, but denies that he has any other connection with the business.

Like all of the stories surrounding his family, no matter how plausible, it is impossible to prove them.
By the time we drove back to Nawabshah through the flat farmlands, word had spread that Asif was in town and a crowd of some 50 men had gathered in the forecourt of the house. The rest of the evening had been taken up with a bewildering number of local disputes mainly concerning kidnapping or robbery by one or other branch of the Zardari clan. While Asif lounged in front of this animated crowd, quietly puffing on a Dunhill cigarette, servants handed him ringing telephones while he shouted over the growing din. When newcomers arrived, they bowed down to touch him before fiercely thumping their hand over their heart as a sign of fealty. Only occasionally, when a tall landowner or senior bureaucrat appeared, did he rise from his chair and grasp them by the arm. By nightfall, the District Commissioner and the Superintendant of Police were both sitting in the front row, like spectators, while Asif delegated sub-committees to investigate the latest dispute. Clerks hurried off into the house and brought back typed statements and requests to numerous government officials ad departments. It was a medieval scene- fierce-looking farmers would be shouting their version of some complicated abduction or robbery, while Asif’s retainers literally held them apart. Asif drank the occasional glass of water, respectfully offered by a servant. ‘Do you think this would be feudal enough to satisfy my enemies?’ he shouted at me.

FAMILY FEUDS AND ABDUCTIONS

The most bizarre story concerned one of his relatives who had been abducted by a local gang, which demanded a £17,000 ransom. ‘There is no way I can start paying ransoms –otherwise none of my relatives will be safe.’ He explained. I turned to a man sitting next to me for a running interpretation. He turned out to be the local police Superintendant and he told me they knew where the gang’s hideout was, but if they stormed it, his relative might get hurt, so they were biding their time. He had no complaints about Asif’s general behaviour. ‘Sometimes he gets a bit hot-headed and asks us to do something or charge someone but he is quite benevolent and usually ends up seeing reason.’

I wandered off to bed while Asif stayed up until well after midnight. The next morning, there was an even bigger crowd jostling to explain their woes to him. At 10 a.m., I visited him in his stark bedroom, in which there was nothing but a large double bed, an air conditioner, a chair and the mobile trolley holding his breakfast. Asif, once again reeking of men’s scent, was wearing an elegant white waistcoat over his spotlessly white silk shalwar kameez. He wolfed his breakfast down while a servant wearing a psychedically-coloured Sindhi cap watched over him. Two black automatic rifles were propped against the wall and dozens of back issues of GQ magazine were stacked on the floor and strewn over the bed. He was happy to chat about his role of adjudicator. 'They take my decisions as final because they know I am just. I have to be, otherwise they wouldn’t come to me for rulings.’

Already, elderly relatives with large moustaches and clutching walking sticks were queuing up at the door to get in a quick word before he retuned to his seat amongst the crowd. He may not be the Prime Minister, but Asif Ali Zardari has no regrets about the life he leads or the power he wields. As one policeman at the house said to me: “Four years ago, there would be nothing like this… Mr Zardari is in his element. Perhaps you could say it was a marriage of opportunity and he has hit the jackpot.’

This article appeared in Tatler, June 1990