Questions raised over Zardari's mental state

Reports reveal presidential hopeful's 'unauthorised contact' with US envoy to UN and his struggle with psychiatric illnesses

Activists of the ruling Pakistan People's Party shout slogans in support of party co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari in Islamabad yesterday.

Islamabad // The presidential bid of Asif Ali Zardari, the widower of Pakistan's first female prime minister, was mired in controversy yesterday amid questions about his mental health and relationship with a UN envoy.

The news that Mr Zardari had suffered from depression and post-traumatic stress disorder as recently as last year surfaced one day after Nawaz Sharif, his main political rival, withdrew from the coalition government, setting the scene for an intense political confrontation. Mr Sharif ended the country's shaky period of "reconciliation" exactly one week after the two main coalition partners achieved their common goal of forcing Pervez Musharraf to resign as president.

Mr Sharif accused Mr Zardari's Pakistan People's Party (PPP) of failing to honour pledges to reinstate judges sacked by Mr Musharraf. Aides for Mr Sharif and Mr Zardari have been quick to dust off files on their leaders' rivals, and the stage has been set for a muckraking battle in the run-up to presidential elections on Sept 6. "We have been playing softball. Now we can play hardball. Let's see what people make of Mr Sharif's past as a protégé of the [former] military dictator Zia, his assault on the Supreme Court when he was in power and his flirtation with imposing [Islamic] Sharia law," said a senior PPP leader and confidant of Mr Zardari.

Mr Zardari is also a controversial candidate as he was tainted by corruption scandals during his wife's two terms as prime minister. Although he spent 11 years in prison, he was never convicted. Mr Sharif's party was likely delighted by yesterday's Financial Times newspaper, which said it had seen a medical report detailing Mr Zardari's struggle with mental illness as recently as last year. The medical reports were used by Mr Zardari to successfully fight a now defunct High Court case in the UK.

The report, written by an American doctor, diagnosed him with a range of psychiatric illnesses, including dementia, major depressive disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder. The illnesses were said to be linked to his time in Pakistani prisons fighting charges of corruption. He claims to have had his tongue cut and to have been tortured during his incarceration. "I do not see any improvement in these issues for at least a year," the doctor wrote, according to the FT.

The medical report also quoted Stephen Reich, a psychiatrist from New York, as saying Mr Zardari was unable to recall the birthdays of his wife and children and had thought about suicide. Mr Zardari "was now fit and well", the FT quoted Wajid Shamsul Hasan, the Pakistan high commissioner to London, as saying. A second blow to Mr Zardari's presidential bid was a report in the The New York Times that Zalmay Khalilzad, the US ambassador to the United Nations, had been having "unauthorised contact" with Mr Zardari, even as the United States was trying to remain neutral in Pakistan's chaotic politics.

Richard A Boucher, the US assistant secretary of state for South Asia, apparently sent off some angry e-mails to Mr Khalilzad after learning about the contact, which was allegedly without his department's knowledge, according to the paper. Quoting one e-mail, the newspaper reported that Mr Khalilzad had spoken by telephone with Mr Zardari several times a week for the past month. The two had also planned to meet privately in Dubai next week, but the meeting was cancelled after Mr Boucher learnt from Mr Zardari that the ambassador was providing "advice and help", the report claimed.

The report comes at a sensitive time in Pakistan when the PPP is treading a thin line as it claims that the US-led "war on terror" is being conducted for Pakistani interests while trying to dispel the impression that the government is in Washington's thrall. The government of George W Bush is uncomfortable with Mr Sharif as a potential leader of Pakistan, and the contact between Mr Zardari and Mr Khalilzad appeared to show that despite public protestations of neutrality, Washington was seeking another ally.

Mr Zardari filed his nomination papers yesterday to contest the presidential elections. It remains to be seen whether he would return the country to a parliamentary democracy according to the PPP's election manifesto or retain sweeping presidential powers. The electoral college for the presidential election is made up of the upper and lower houses of the federal parliament and four provincial assemblies. Mr Sharif's party has nominated Saeed uz Zaman Siddiqui, a retired Supreme Court chief judge, to challenge Mr Zardari. The Pakistan Muslim League (Q), the political ally of Mr Musharraf, has nominated its secretary general, Mushahid Hussain, for the post.

Political instability has compounded the sense of volatility as Pakistan's security forces continued to clash with militants in the tribal area of Bajaur where fighting has left 500 people dead in the past two weeks. Earlier this week, the government announced it had banned the main Pakistani Taliban group, Tehreek-I-Taliban Pakistan, and frozen its bank accounts and assets. @email:[e-mail]