What’s a double game? It’s all politics!

Pakistan’s former president and PPP leader Asif Ali Zardari is a tough man to interview. It is rare to see him make a standard political statement, devoid of substance, in response to any question he is asked directly. He listens keenly to every question and responds with a brief and sharp statement that doesn’t aim to dodge. But while it makes him a difficult subject to interview, it is also the reason why one must pay attention to what he says.

An example is his response to Bilawal Bhutto Zaradri’s unsolicited advice to all babas of Pakistani politics to call it a day – retreat to their homes or madrassahs and let the younger generation take over. Coming from a man who was given a party to lead when still a teenager but now pushing mid-thirties, has already served as Pakistan’s foreign minister, his advice is indicative of both his frustration with the directionless game of musical chairs that, every few years or so, brings Pakistan squeaking back to square one, as well as at the inability of his elders of break out of this cycle.

But in an uncharacteristically long interview to a local news channel, Asif Ali Zardari barely took a minute to put his party’s chairman, his son, firmly in his place. He is more talented than me, said Zardari, more educated and articulate, but experience is experience. When asked if he thought his son was ready to take complete charge of his party, Mr Zardari just calmly shook his head and muttered, no, not yet.

It must have left many among the PPP, who waste no opportunity to tell local TV channels that Bilawal was going to be the next prime minister, how they were going to take a young man to the top office when his own father doesn’t believe he is ready. But it left no doubt in the minds of political observers as to who is in charge in the PPP. And this is as clear an insight to where we are headed as any that one can get in the slippery, dodgy and very, very murky playing field leading to the February 8 elections next year.

Just as he minced no words about the state of his son’s readiness to don the big mantle of being the sole leader of his party, Asif Ali Zaradri was also crystal clear about the outcome of the next elections: no single party, he said, was in a position to reach the magic number of 172 that is required to form a simple majority government. And even if he didn’t say so, this must be one of the principal reasons in his mind why he must stick around for some more time.

It isn’t the burden of leadership that Bilawal is not ready for, but the dog-eat-dog spectacle that the February 8 polls are likely to cough up. This is a game that Zardari has rarely lost, despite having to spend over 14 years in jail without ever being convicted of a crime. He has been scarred and has scarred others, but one thing that has remained unchanged throughout the many battles he has fought is that he has never ever come out of one with permanent enemies or permanent friends. And this may be the magic he is looking to teach his son before he can pronounce him ready.

Imran Khan and his PTI’s current woes are a living example of what happens to those who fail to wield this wand. He is perhaps the only politician in Pakistan’s post-Zia history who was presented with a golden opportunity to change everything that is holding this country back – not because he had unconditional support of the army but because his charisma had worked its way into the hearts and minds of one of the youngest nations in the world. With 70 per cent of Pakistan’s 250 million people below the age of 35, this was a power that no Pakistan politician has ever held over the last 50 years.

All he needed was the wisdom to understand that political battles are very different from military conflicts where the sole objective is to kill. In politics, helping your enemies stay alive often makes far more sense than bringing them to a permanent end. In fact, that is the only way to ensure that when the tide turns against you, there are others out there to bail you out, no matter how bitterly you may oppose their politics.

That is perhaps why when Zardari was asked about the conflicting messages his party is getting from the establishment, and if it meant someone was playing a double game with him, he just smiled and said: what is a double game? It is all politics!