OUTSTANDING in the mess the gentleman who just vacated the president`s office left is the ambivalence of what lies ahead in terms of constitutional rectification where parliament is supreme for citizens but bows to a new supremo, Mr A. Zardari. Should he take presidential office then presidential powers could well be retained or enhanced.

Why should people be uncomfortable ask the candidate`s supporters, if a president also co-chairs a party or if parliamentarians opt to be in that masterly grip? In America the president is essentially a party man. He is the chief executive and commander in chief and he too reaches office through the votes of an electoral college.

But there is a major difference in that in America the House and the Senate show minds of their own about advice and consent to key appointments despite party affiliations; and the judiciary is independent. As things stand at home, the future president`s predecessor (Pervez Musharraf, remember him?) got himself elected by an outgoing parliament.

An innovative successor could reach the post through a foregone parliament. He might then win plaudits for backing the renunciation of arbitrary power to dissolve the parliament for it could be in his party`s interest to assure its tenure and in the opposition`s interest to appeal to their head of state for relief.

The person of the president embodies the unity of the federation and is implicitly apolitical. The incumbent and thereby candidates should be above controversy, let alone suspicion. To the voters who elected his electoral college, the president does not represent a constituency he symbolises the dignity and per

sona of the state and every citizen.

Perhaps no other candidate ever to be nominated by a party is viewed with as much moral reservation as Mr Zardari. (The former COAS Musharraf`s candidacy was faulted because of his already being in government service not because of his personal character or his public image.)

The NRO may give Mr Zardari and others legal coverage; but amnesty and indemnity of the sort which many deemed wise for Benazir Bhutto, Nawaz Sharif and Altaf Hussain was never pleaded for publicly in relation to spouses. And it is to that identity that Mr Zardari owes his remarkable political rise.

For that very reason he has also been demonstrably victimised. But irrespective of the letter of the law (which changes so frequently in Pakistan it demands an unusual degree of literacy to keep up) only those bracketed with him in the amazing proliferation of allegations, indictments and cases where accountability was used politically, categorise them as wholly unjust whatever their specificity.

If the manner of investigative procedures was scandalising so was the manner of its renunciation. To put it bluntly hardly anyone thinks him innocent of fiscal crookedness and more than a few think of him as conducive to more serious crimes. The Justice Nizam case is perhaps the least incendiary instance to cite. Rather than command respect, Mr Zardari inspires fear.

Media savvy, silver-tongued, and politically dexterous Mr Zardari is, but even these gifts occasion alarm if perceived as masking insincerity of purpose and unreliability. One of the reasons negotiations between Mr Bhutto and the PNA were so fraught was that the PNA knew Mr Bhutto could talk rings round them any time. Being able to outwit the political opposition does not mean that you have convinced them. It just leaves them feeling vaguely cheated.

How, with the best will in the world, may common Pakistanis view a President Asif Zardari as possessing the requisite objectivity about what constitutes the supreme national interest that his self-interested immediate predecessor was reviled for lacking?

As for neutrality PPP jiyala exultation broke bounds in Governor House Punjab, and their leaders pledged to do the same for the presidency. But Pakistan is not the equivalent of a PPP fief — yet. Nor do its citizens want it to become one. Mr Bhutto successfully for himself (initially) but disastrously for the provinces and federation reconstituted provincial governments that were not PPP-hued. Fears that the PPP`s diminished first family will activate another set of FSF-type goons may prove groundless, but there should not be the slightest shadow of such apprehensions surrounding the persona of a presidential candidate.

For far too many Pakistanis over a wide-ranging spectrum Mr Zardari`s nomination as a presidential candidate is outrageous. Surely the PPP`s co-chairman and the 19-year-old who is his boss can find a less stigmatised party man.

They could find someone consensually acceptable if they put their minds to it.