Asif Ali Zardari

Asif Ali Zardari is a Pakistani politician who served as the 11th President of Pakistan from 2008 to 2013 and was elected to a second non-consecutive term as the 14th President in March 2024. He was born Asif Ali Zardari on July 26, 1955, in Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan, into a Sindhi tribal-landowning family. His father Hakim Ali Zardari was a tribal chief and politician of the Zardari Baloch tribe, and his mother Bilquis Sultana Zardari was a homemaker.

He was educated at Karachi Grammar School and Cadet College Petaro, and he later attended Saint Patrick's High School in Karachi. His December 18, 1987 marriage to Benazir Bhutto — daughter of executed Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and herself a future two-time Prime Minister — drew him into the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) political orbit.

His tenure as a member of the Pakistani federal cabinet during his wife's two premierships (1988–1990 and 1993–1996) was followed by 11 cumulative years of detention on corruption charges across 1990–2004, during which he was never convicted of the charges leveled against him. The nickname "Mr. Ten Percent" attached to him during this period.

His December 27, 2007 widowhood — following Benazir Bhutto's assassination at a Rawalpindi rally — elevated him to the de facto leadership of the PPP, which he formally took as co-chairman alongside his son Bilawal. The PPP's February 2008 parliamentary victory led to his September 9, 2008 election as President. He served until September 2013. His March 2024 return to the presidency followed the PPP's coalition arrangement with the Pakistan Muslim League (N).

His name Asif derives from the Arabic asif (meaning forgiving, or the name of King Solomon's vizier in Islamic tradition). Asif has been a common Muslim boys' name across South Asia and the Arab world.