The best feature of the presidential election in Pakistan today is that it is democratic. Even if the all-but-certain winner, Asif Zardari, is as bad as many fear, and even if he tries to retain for the presidency all the powers that Pervez Musharraf assumed, he is there because he and his party were elected. The same system could get him out. Perhaps even quite soon – in months, not years – although the cost of that would be more upheaval of the kind that Pakistan does not need but probably cannot avoid.

To hark on about the virtues of democracy might seem Pollyannaish, what with the stories of Zardari’s cronyism and his hostility to competent advice, as well as his determination to hold on to power when he gets it.

His first priority has been to block the return of judges dismissed by Musharraf who might reopen old corruption charges against him. The second has been to retain the power of the President to dismiss Parliament, preventing it from challenging him. This is not a good start.

Nor is his dismissiveness towards professional economic advice in Pakistan’s most severe economic predicament for at least seven years and his indifference to the value of diplomatic experience, although Pakistan needs all of its international friends.

It may be hard for his tenure to last long, for all the extraordinary ability he has shown in the past two months to strike deals to win support. There are worries now that he will merely be a “civilian autocrat”. The comparison with Musharraf’s, or any other, period of military rule is probably wrong.

To stay in power Zardari will need to keep peddling to retain the support of the provincial assemblies and the national parliament, which are set to elect him today. His rival, Nawaz Sharif, head of the conservative Pakistan Muslim League, sits there glowering from his power base in the Punjab, which is the most powerful province in Pakistan by such a margin that it is like a separate, far wealthier, country. Sindh province is probably loyal to Zardari’s Pakistan People’s Party in memory of Benazir Bhutto, his late wife, and of her father. Voters, however, have shown little sign of liking Zardari.

And the Army loathes him: its new head, General Ashfaq Kiyani, calmer and shrewder than Musharraf, has kept it out of politics but it has a stake in the stability of the country – if only because it has to repair the consequences. It is hard to stay in power in Pakistan without the tacit support of the Army.

Zardari will have to persuade other governments to help Pakistan, and possibly to court the International Monetary Fund to avoid defaulting on its loans. The capital now flowing out – and market estimates that government debt is now the riskiest in the world – will hem in the next president.

The greatest danger of Zardari is that through his alliances with religious parties, his economic incompetence and his casual neglect of terrorism, he inflames the reflex anti-Western feeling that is becoming a danger for Pakistan. The next hazard is if he exacerbates the new bout of friction with India over Kashmir. Musharraf’s great achievement, after stabilising the economy, was to take the heat out of that 60-year-old dispute.

A president constrained by the economy – which he cannot ignore as easily as the Constitution – is not quite a dictator. If he gets too much wrong too quickly the deals that Zardari has struck to get into the presidency will come unstuck and his rivals, and voters, will get him out.

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