The author of the article, Wajid Shamsul Hasan, is a close friend and advisor of PPP Co-Chairman, Asif Ali Zardari as he was of the late Pakistan prime minister, Benazir Bhutto. He is the UK High Commissioner from Pakistan and has also written Benazir Bhutto's last will. The views and ideas expressed in this article are entirely his own.
Pakistan has Mr Asif Ali Zardari overwhelmingly elected as its 11th President. The unprecedented historic vote has also overburdened him with the herculean responsibilities.
He has to fulfil the mission of his martyred spouse and leader Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto by implementing her agenda of making Pakistan an egalitarian country, ensuring equality to all its citizens, to usher in a socio-economic order that would lead to the greatest good of the largest number.
Besides she laid down her life to make Pakistan a democratic country, ensuring supremacy of the parliament, rule of law and to eliminate scourge of extremism/terrorism to foster peaceful co-existence at home and abroad.
The overwhelming confidence reposed in him by the nation would bury under their own raked up filth the varied perceptions about him sustained and spread by his critics since his marriage to Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto. No doubt
Pakistan's resurgent democracy is a gift to the nation by the martyred leader carrying forward the legacy of Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto singed in her pristine and noble blood.
Pakistan today has come to have a very strong democratic dispensation with both elected President and the Prime Minister providing the government and the people a combination of leadership that was not seen since many years in the recent past.
Though its present is shrouded under dark clouds, the new emerging scenario definitely is heralding hopes of a better and prosperous future.
Pakistan's elected leaders enjoying unquestionable legitimacy for the first time must call upon the international community and especially its western friends to review their vision of the country and its people as the most viable and formidable democracy among the Muslim countries.
They need to be urged for a positive response from them to Pakistan's urgent needs. They must understand that there are surely no quick fix solutions to its socio-economic and security problems and the military as well does not offer any panaceas for all its ills as had been paddled in the past by various military dictators.
The current government does not have a magical wand to overcome overnight the multifarious problems left as a legacy of misrule by General Pervez Musharraf. Both internally and externally Pakistan can ill-afford a serial of blame game.
Instead what is required are socio-economic policies that can put the Pakistani people in the lead towards taking their affairs in their own hands. Once Pakistanis become masters of their own destiny, they will be in a position to eliminate the misplaced view among outsiders who think that by forcing Pakistan to follow their dictates it can pull itself out of sea of problems.
I am sure once we reassert our independence and put into a speedy action plan for bringing the Tribal areas into the pale of civilisation since this region has become an epicentre of terrorism—we would be moving in the direction of inflicting fatal blows to the obscurantist forces.
Today our people in the north are trapped between terrorists and a military response—especially by the unmanned American drones--that cause more collateral casualties. Such incidents yield insignificant tactical gains while generating more ill-will among the people.
President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani will do their best to usher in changes of seminal consequences. The government is committed to end tribal people's disconnect with the rest of the democratic dispensation, bury their status as second class citizens and free them of the stranglehold of archaic rules and regulations that keep them tied down with the past not allowing them to move forward into the future.
Islamabad has dedicated to free tribal areas of their colonial vestiges.
Now the democratic process has been completed with the election of the President. The government would now surely get into action, bury the rotten baggage it had inherited and initiate process of change leading with socio-economic upliftment programmes for providing jobs and alleviations of the problems faced by the people.
It must seek space from its western friends who create the impression by their actions as more trigger happy. A positive transformation shall come in the northern areas and rest of Pakistan sooner than later.
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In deference to the mission of its martyred leader Benazir Bhutto whose agenda was to spread education, healthcare and social services in these forsaken northern regions the PPP government and its partners are determined to bring the step-motherly treatment to the tribal people to an end and to ensure they are at par with the rest of the country.
She wanted to win the hearts and minds of the people not to gun them down unnecessarily.
Pakistan's critical issue is the bad state of its economy. It is reported to have 25 per cent inflation rate, prices of essential items have been rocketing high since it is no exception to world wide upswing and lack of investment in power generation capacity by the previous rulers have halted wheels of industry causing unemployment.
While welcoming steps such as recently announced by US Senate to provide $15bn (€10bn, £8bn) in civilian aid over a decade is no doubt an encouraging beginning. The US Senate gesture needs to be emulated by other donors as well to help Pakistan stabilise its economy.
The current state of our economy is related to war on terror with horrendous spill over affects on rest of Pakistan. Americans bomb in the northern areas the terrorists react to it by bomb blasting in rest of the country making investors insecure and unsafe thereby hitting hard Pakistan's economy.
Besides, we continue to play hosts to three million Afghan refugees—yet another socio-economic burden on us.
Election of Mr Asif Ali Zardari as President will inspire confidence in the business and investors community who know well about his understanding of the problems faced by them and also are aware of his tremendous capacity to tackle them.
Besides, common man and woman too would feel reassured by his election since PPP has always been known for its policies that improve the lot of the poor and the denied.
General Pervez Musharraf's politics was deceptive. It did get fully exposed but then he had done the damage beyond repair. After his departure from the scene and under the democratic government and a new army chief, Pakistani military is doing its best to counter terrorism.
No doubt Washington gave General Musharraf billions of dollars, it must not ignore Pakistani military's constant need for new high-technology weapons to penetrate into impregnable hideout of the terrorists.
Pakistani soldiers have definitely done better than NATO or Afghan troops—at a heavy human cost—in countering Taliban threats and aggression. It is uncharitable to an army that has lost more than thousand of its soldiers to accuse it of not doing enough and that its "military's intelligence agencies still view jihadis as a foreign policy tool."
Pakistani politics has finally come to a stage when it will have to be shaped by its people and not by outsiders. West need to learn a lesson for its blind support for Mr Musharraf's dictatorship that has left the Americans especially not with many friends in Pakistan.
They have to grasp that in order to stabilise Afghanistan they shall have to strengthen democracy in Pakistan.
Washington's main ally Mr Musharraf is no more remembered but for his messing up with the fate of the country.
Men who matter in a country that was committed to making world safe for democracy must realise that their reputation stands tarnished because of their repeated expediency to support military dictators sacrificing the genuine democratic aspirations of the people struggling in support of democracy.
Their concern about the possible failure of a state and loose nukes are overstated though understandable.
The way to help such situations is by not undermining democratic aspirations of a people and under writing dictatorship. It is not an over statement that the new government in Pakistan provides the first opening in years to confront extremism and tackle Pakistan's long standing socio-economic problems. It needs to be supported.
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