President Asif Ali Zardari lays flowers on assassinated former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto's grave to mark her death anniversary at the Bhutto family mausoleum in Garhi Khuda Bakhsh, December 26, 2011.—Reuters Photo

GARHI KHUDA BUX: An embattled but defiant President Asif Ali Zardari used the fourth anniversary of the death of his wife Benazir Bhutto to say he would not resign in the face of numerous crises building around him.

“We want to make history, not headlines. I tell you, politics — which we have left to our prime minister and the cabinet — is the art of the possible,” he told a rally of tens of thousands of supporters. “But making a nation is the art of the impossible and I believe I’m doing the art of the impossible.”

The president in his fiery speech said that democracy was still in its infancy in the country, and it will take time to grow stronger. We will only fight for democracy, he said.

I am a constitutional president, added President Zardari, and (Gilani) is a constitutional prime minister.

In a jab at the Supreme Court, which is currently pursuing several corruption cases against Zardari, who currently enjoys immunity as head of state, he asked about the as yet unsolved case of his wife’s assassination.

“People ask what happened to Benazir Bhutto’s case,” he said. “I ask (Chief Justice) Iftikhar Chaudhry: what happened to Benazir Bhutto’s case?”

The rally came two days after cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan brought at least 100,000 people into the streets of Karachi in a rally that increased pressure on the government.

Taking a jibe at Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaf’s rising popularity, which Imran Khan terms a political “tsunami,” the president said it was not a “tsunami”, but a “Zoo-nami”.

“We were compared to countries like Singapore,” said President Zardari, commenting on Imran Khan’s speech two days earlier. “Look at their population, and look at ours.”

“We do not want to enter into any theatre of war. We are friends of all. Nobody can dictate who we trade with and who not,” he added.

Police estimated Tuesday’s crowd at more than 70,000. Colourful banners sprouted from the throng, which spread out beneath the graceful, white marble mausoleum that contains the bodies of Pakistan’s most famous political family.

Speaking from behind bulletproof glass, Zardari appeared relaxed and healthy, which would likely calm rumours of his ill health.

Zardari “struck a defiant note, but refrained from attacking the military establishment”, at the rally, said security analyst Imtiaz Gul. “This comes a day after Gilani also backed down, and based on that this smacks of some sort of ‘backdown’ on the part of the government.”

Party members on the scene were upbeat.

“The army or the Supreme Court can do nothing to the government and our party,” said Ali Gohar, 45, a PPP worker from the town of Sukkur who had come to pay homage to Bhutto.

“The PPP has the blood of martyrs in its foundations and we will support it as long as we live.”