Is President Zardari Attempting to Rewrite History?

The short answer to that, I hope, is no.

I raise this topic because the Associated Press of Pakistan has recently published a profile of the President Mr. Asif Ali Zardari. The said profile was officially released by the President House after Mr. Zardari was sworn in as President; incidentally, the same profile can also be found on the PPP website.

According to this profile, President Zardari obtained his primary education from Karachi Grammar School (KGS), an elite institution that has ‘educated’ many of Pakistan’s most illustrious personalities. Trouble is, according to the BBC, Mr. Zardari attended Cadet College Petaro and St. Patrick's High School. The St. Patrick's Wikipedia page refers to Mr. Zardari as an alumnus, along with Pervez Musharraf, Shaukat Aziz, L. K. Advani and Danish Kaneria (I wonder if any of them ran into each other at school?). According to the Wall Street Journal, Mr. Zardari flunked out of St. Patrick's College in 1974.

This is not the first time that questions have been raised about Mr. Zardari's academic history. In documents submitted to the Election Commission Mr. Zardari claimed that he was a graduate of the London School of Economics and Business (LSE - B), which is an institution that nobody's been able to find! (We've covered this in detail here; interestingly, the WSJ article states that the biography given to them has Zardari attending a Pedinton College, which too could not be located!)

The present profile however, makes no mention of LSE - B, stating only that "he pursued his further education in London where he studied Business." It appears that Mr. Zardari and his minders have smartened up, which makes the error about the school even more surprising.

So, why the inconsistency?

Perhaps, Mr. Zardari is fulfilling a life long fantasy. I say this because I've heard a number of people reminisce that in his youth Mr. Zardari always wanted to fit in with the ‘KGS crowd’; to meet this end, he would loiter around KGS befriending Grammarian boys with the hopes of eventually befriending Grammarian girls. These mutterings have all come from the mouths of snooty old men who consider themselves to be superior to Zardari, so I don't think there's any point delving too deeply into this line of reasoning. Plus, I don't think Mr. Zardari is that petty.

The more logical cause for the inconsistency therefore is that this was a screw up by Presidential aides who probably assumed that Mr. Zardari went to the same school as his wife. (It’s a good thing they didn’t write that he attended the Convent of Jesus and Mary!)

This raises questions about the veracity of statements being issued by the Presidency and as a result calls into question the quality of staff available to the President.

It’s a funny thing bureaucracy – no matter who’s in power, the faces behind the scenes, especially in the lower rungs of power, tend not too change all that much. President Musharraf relied heavily on the staff of the Army House, his spokesman was an Army General. President Zardari will not have that luxury, and it is unclear whether the staff that has served Tarrar, Leghari and Ghulam Ishaq Khan, or is descended from that ilk, will be able to diligently serve the most powerful civilian president in the nation’s history. Moreover, it's not even clear if there is enough staff to cater to the needs of President Zardari. One thing is clear, the Presidency has a lot more power and a greater deal of responsibility now and it would be wise for President Zardari to ensure that it's staff is competent. The release of an inaccurate profile may not have caused any harm but the release of an inaccurate statement on policy or security matters from the Office of the President will cause considerable harm.

P.S.

I've just gone over President Zardari's Wikipedia entry seems to have been updated recently and there is no mention of his academic history. I am certain that in the past this page mentioned that Mr. Zardari attended Cadet College Petaro and St. Patrick's. So, maybe the President is trying to re-write history!