YOUR editorial ‘Time to act’ (Feb 8) in which you suggest that President Asif Zardari should resign as PPP chairman is off the mark. Will Zardari’s doing so just stop his interference in politics?

Instead, Zardari should quit the presidency. He can then just be the PPP chairman. If he resigns as president, his PPP chairmanship will be his party’s problem, not the country’s. That will be the lesser of two evils.

The editorial makes another comment: “The president has few formal powers left but perceptions do matter.” There is no perception here, only reality.

The reality is that the prime minister, like his predecessor, acts like Zardari’s assistant, pretending that the office of the prime minister has no power while, in fact, it, under the Constitution, he has all executive powers.

What was Zardari doing in London meeting the British prime minister and the Afghan president? Should this not have been done by the prime minister? And there are so many other such instances in which the prime minister and his immediate predecessor have gladly let Zardari railroad them.

SIDDIQUE MALIK Louisville, USA