Asif Ali Zardari

Asif Ali Zardari (born 26 July 1955) is a Pakistani politician who has served as the fourteenth president of Pakistan since March 2024, having served as the eleventh president from 2008 to 2013. A member of the Pakistan People's Party, he is the first Pakistani head of state born after the country's independence, and he is known as the widower of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto. ^{1 2}

Zardari was born on 26 July 1955 in Karachi to a prominent Sindhi-Baloch family, the only son of Hakim Ali Zardari, chief of the Baloch Zardari tribe and a prominent landowner, and Bilquis Sultana Zardari. He was brought up and educated in Karachi; in his youth he led a polo team known as the Zardari Four and practised boxing, and his father owned Bambino, a famous Karachi cinema. His academic record remains disputed: his official biography says he graduated from Cadet College, Petaro, in 1972, while a claimed London business degree of the early 1970s has not been confirmed. ¹

Zardari rose to prominence after his marriage to Benazir Bhutto on 18 December 1987; she became prime minister after the 1988 election. When her first government was dismissed by President Ghulam Ishaq Khan in 1990, Zardari was widely criticised for involvement in corruption scandals said to have led to its collapse. In her second government he served as federal minister of investment and chaired the Pakistan Environmental Protection Council. After her brother Murtaza Bhutto was killed by police in Karachi on 20 September 1996 and her government was dismissed a month later, Zardari was arrested and indicted for Murtaza's murder and for corruption. ^{1 2}

The charges are recorded here as charges, together with their outcomes as the articles state them — not as settled guilt. Arrested in October 1990 on kidnapping and extortion charges, which the Bhutto family considered politically motivated and fabricated, he was acquitted of bank fraud and conspiracy to murder and freed in February 1993, acquitted of further bank-fraud charges in March 1994, and saw all other corruption charges relating to the first Bhutto term dropped or thrown out of court. After his 1996 arrest he was indicted in Pakistan for corruption and in Switzerland for money laundering, and indicted with eighteen others for conspiracy to murder Murtaza Bhutto. Although incarcerated, he nominally served in parliament, having been elected to the National Assembly in 1990 and the Senate in 1997. Released in 2004, he went into self-exile in Dubai. The English article records that he was acquitted of various criminal charges in 2008. ^{1 2}

Zardari returned when Benazir Bhutto was assassinated on 27 December 2007 and, as the PPP's new co-chairman, led the party to victory in the 2008 general elections. He spearheaded the coalition that forced the military ruler Pervez Musharraf to resign and was elected president on 6 September 2008. As president he remained a strong American ally in the war in Afghanistan despite public disapproval after the Raymond Davis incident and the 2011 NATO attack in Salala, and he achieved the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment in 2010, which constitutionally reduced his own presidential powers. His tenure was criticised for the handling of the 2010 floods and growing terrorist violence. On 9 September 2013 he became the country's first elected president to complete his constitutional term. ¹

Zardari became president of the Pakistan Peoples Party Parliamentarians in 2015 and returned to the National Assembly in 2018. Following the 2024 general election he was elected president of Pakistan a second time under a coalition agreement, taking the oath on 10 March 2024. ^{1 3}

Neither the English nor the Arabic article has any religion content for Zardari at all. Wikidata gives Islam generically, and the Urdu article files him in "Pakistani Shia" and "Shia politicians" categories — filings, which never attest. His faith is therefore recorded as unknown under the two-source rule, with the filings preserved in his record's faith note. ^{4 3}

This section sets out positions as reported in the sources; it is not a verdict by the museum. In the 1990s his opponents tagged him "Mr. Ten Percent" over alleged commissions — allegations of which the courts acquitted him in a number of cases and dropped others, as recorded above. Political observers have accused his presidential administration of corruption and cronyism, and his approval ratings late in his first term ranged from 11 to 14 per cent; defenders point to the Eighteenth Amendment, which reduced presidential power in favour of parliament. ¹

Zardari married Benazir Bhutto on 18 December 1987; the marriage, which was arranged, was followed by celebrations attended by over 100,000 people in Karachi. They had three children, including Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and Aseefa Bhutto Zardari. Benazir Bhutto was assassinated on 27 December 2007. ¹

• The defined source entities cited above, recorded in data/source/.
• Revisions of this article must be dated, and must name the source that changed each fact.