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Asif Ali Zardari (Urdu: aSf `ly zrdry; Sindhi: aSf `ly zrdry; born 26 July 1955) is a Pakistani politician and the former co-chairperson of Pakistan People's Party. He served as the 11th President of Pakistan from 2008 to 2013, the first president born after Partition. The son of Hakim Ali Zardari, a landowner from Sindh, Zardari rose to prominence after his marriage to Benazir Bhutto in 1987, becoming the First Gentleman after his wife was elected Prime Minister in 1988. When Bhutto's government was dismissed by President Ghulam Ishaq Khan in 1990, Zardari was widely criticized for involvement in corruption scandals that led to its collapse.

He generally stayed out of his wife's first administration, but he and his associates became entangled in corruption cases linked to the government. He was largely blamed for the collapse of the Bhutto administration. After the dismissal of Bhutto's government in August 1990, Benazir Bhutto and Zardari were prohibited from leaving the country by security forces under the direction of the Pakistan Army. During the interim government between August and October, caretaker Prime Minister Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi, a Bhutto rival, initiated investigations of corruption by the Bhutto administration. Jatoi accused Zardari of using his wife's political position to charge a ten percent commission for obtaining permission to set up any project or to receive loans. He was tagged with the nickname "Mr. Ten Percent". He was arrested on 10 October 1990 on charges relating to kidnapping and extortion. The charges alleged an extortion scheme that involved tying a supposed bomb to a British businessman's leg. The Bhutto family considered the indictment politically motivated and fabricated. In the October 1990 elections, he was elected to the National Assembly while in jail. Bhutto and the PPP staged a walkout from the inaugural session of the National Assembly to protest Zardari's incarceration. He posted $20,000 bail, but his release was blocked by a government ordinance that removed a court's power to release suspects being tried in the terrorist court, which fast-track trials for alleged terrorists. The ordinance was later revoked and a special court acquitted him of bank fraud and conspiracy to murder political opponents. He was freed in February 1993. In March 1994, Zardari was acquitted of bank fraud charges. All other corruption charges relating to Bhutto's first term were dropped or thrown out of the courts. On March 25, 1991, the hijackers aboard Singapore Airlines Flight 117 demanded Zardari's release among other demands. The hijackers were killed by Singapore Commandos. In April 1993, he became one of the 18 cabinet ministers in the caretaker government that succeeded Nawaz Sharif's first abridged premiership. The caretaker government lasted until the July elections. After Bhutto's election, he served as her Investment Minister, chief of the intelligence bureau, and the head of the Federal Investigation Agency. In February 1994, Benazir sent Zardari to meet with Saddam Hussein in Iraq to deliver medicine in exchange for three detained Pakistanis arrested on the ambiguous Kuwait-Iraq border. In April 1994, Zardari denied allegations that he was wielding unregulated influence as a spouse and acting as "de-facto Prime Minister". In March 1995, he was appointed chairman of the new Environment Protection Council. During the beginning of the second Bhutto Administration, a Bhutto family feud between Benazir and her mother, Nusrat Bhutto, surfaced over the political future of Murtaza Bhutto, Nusrat's son and Benazir's younger brother. Benazir thanked Zardari for his support. In September 1996, Murtaza and seven others died in a shootout with police in Karachi, while the city was undergoing a three-year civil war. At Murtaza's funeral, Nusrat accused Benazir and Zardari of being responsible and vowed to pursue prosecution. Ghinwa Bhutto, Murtaza's widow, also accused Zardari of being behind his killing. President Farooq Leghari, who would dismiss the Bhutto government seven weeks after Murtaza's death, also suspected Benazir and Zardari's involvement. Several of Pakistan's leading newspapers alleged that Zardari wanted his brother-in-law out of the way because of Murtaza's activities as head of a breakaway faction of the PPP. In November 1996, Bhutto's government was dismissed by Leghari primarily because of corruption and Murtaza's death. Zardari was arrested in Lahore while attempting to flee the country to Dubai. Zardari called for no delays to the 8 January parliamentary elections and for the participation of all opposition parties. Other major political parties quickly agreed to participate, ending any chance of a boycott. Because of the turmoil after the Bhutto assassination, the elections were postponed six weeks to 18 February. In January 2008, he suggested that if his party did win a majority, it might form a coalition with Musharraf's Pakistan Muslim League-Q (PML-Q). He and Nawaz Sharif, leader of the Pakistan Muslim League (N) party (PML-N), threatened national protests if any vote-rigging was attempted. He himself could not run for Parliament because he had not filed election papers in November 2008, back when he had no foreseeable political ambition while Bhutto was alive. The PPP and the PML-N won the largest and second largest number of seats respectively in the February elections. He and Sharif agreed to form a coalition government, ending American hopes of a power-sharing deal between him and Musharraf. They agreed to restore the judiciary, but Zardari took a less stringent stance than Sharif. He met with U.S. ambassador Anne W. Patterson, who pushed for a pact with Musharraf. To strengthen the new coalition, he reached out to Awami National Party, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, and Baloch nationalist leaders, who had all boycotted the elections. After weeks of speculation and party infighting, he said he did not want to become Prime Minister. In mid-March 2008, he chose Yousaf Raza Gillani for Prime Minister in a snub to the more politically powerful Makhdoom Amin Fahim. CANNOTANSWER

Asif Ali Zardari