Zardari aspired to be prime minister: WikiLeaks

A week before the 2008 elections, Asif Ali Zardari was asking General Pervez Musharraf’s National Security Adviser Tariq Aziz for “advice” on “who should be prime minister if the PPP were asked to form the government.”The query from Zardari for Aziz is documented in a cable dated February 16, 2008 from then US Ambassador Anne Patterson who was told by Aziz a day earlier that he had met with Zardari twice in the past four days. At that time Aziz, along with ISI Director Gen Nadeem Taj were trying to dissuade Zardari from seeking the PM slot for himself and support PPP Senior Vice President Makhdoom Amin Fahim for the office.According to another cable, Aziz had told Patterson on February 6 that Musharraf was not willing to accept Zardari as premier, instead he would support Zardari as being behind-the-scenes party leader.Despite Musharraf’s aides pushing Fahim’s name — or perhaps because of it — Zardari seemed most disinclined to approve him as the party’s nominee even as he allowed the speculation to continue. In the one-on-one meeting with Patterson, according to the cable, “Zardari noted ‘Fahim has never done a day’s work in his life’ and that ‘he had been in Dubai five times since Benazir’s death for rest and recreation.The US embassy dutifully sent back to Washington its assessments and profiles of the possible premiership candidates, including at one point PML-N’s Javed Hashmi and ANP’s Asfandyar Wali, whose names Zardari floated in a one-on-one meeting with Patterson on February 20. Patterson pointed out that “all of [her] PPP contacts are lining up behind various contenders and seeking our support for their choices.”