By M Ilyas Khan
BBC News, Islamabad
A year after he moved into the most powerful political office in Pakistan, President Asif Ali Zardari appears to be making a mixed impression.
Some say he has not filled the leadership gap in Pakistan.
The military still seems to be out of civilian control, militants are far from annihilated and the economy is yet to get back on track.
Others acknowledge that so far he has averted the worst fears of his friends and foes.
That is to say, he has not sold off state property for a song, there have been no major financial scams bearing presidential fingerprints and he has not traded state secrets to unfriendly powers.
Mr Zardari ended up in the presidential office by default, due to the death of his wife, Benazir Bhutto, who had vowed to keep him out of politics and had not allowed him to contest the 2008 elections.
This was due to his reputation as an unscrupulous wheeler-dealer who would not desist from harming the country to fill his own pocket.
No conviction
Ms Bhutto believed the country’s notoriously unruly security establishment trapped him in cases of corruption so as to force her to make political compromises.
Her reputation as an independent-minded politician never sat well with the security establishment and some of its junior members had publicly declared her a “security risk” for the country.
Mr Zardari himself spent eight years in jail battling corruption charges - a period which is slightly more than he would spend in the event of a conviction in those cases.
But there were no convictions and in many cases no court hearings even, perhaps because the prosecution either had no evidence against him or was not interested in obtaining a conviction.
Still, the charges stuck and became the subject of a renewed debate when he ascended to presidential office last year.
More recently, many have been blaming his government for failing to curb militancy, end power outages, check prices and improve security.
But many others, including some opposition politicians, admit this cannot be achieved in one year.
Mr Zardari is presiding over the third civilian “intervention” in ongoing military rule in Pakistan since the 1950s.
The army assumed responsibility over defence affairs in the mid-1950s and has since expanded its influence to other spheres of government, including foreign policy.
Mr Zardari cannot purge this influence from the system in a short period, or on his own.
Sure footed
Also, the army’s ongoing war against the militants renders it more or less immune to scrutiny by politicians.
Some friendly countries are also advising against such scrutiny.
Opposition politicians who are demanding the trial of the former military ruler, Gen Pervez Musharraf, say the government is reluctant to move against him due to advice from Saudi Arabia and the UK.
The military has been sure of its footing.
Last year it ignored government orders twice; first when the government tried to place the army’s ISI intelligence service under civilian control and again when the ISI chief was asked to visit India following Mumbai attacks.
But the army’s recent successes against militants in the north-west are seen by many as evidence of the new political leadership managing to isolate militants and put public pressure on the army to confront them.
The progress made in the Swat valley, though limited, is unprecedented.
The army’s previous campaigns have invariably ended in disaster.
Mr Zardari has also signed into law crucial legislation concerning autonomy for Gilgit-Baltistan region and may soon sign another law expanding legal rights of the residents of tribal areas.
The tribal areas are a buffer zone between Pakistan and Afghanistan along a border which remains disputed.
More tolerance
The Gilgit-Baltistan region, too, is disputed territory between India and Pakistan.
Both regions have been demanding legal and political reforms but Islamabad has up until now tended to ignore them.
Another plus point for the president is his success in preventing wider political discord between ruling and opposition politicians.
In March, he reluctantly agreed to restore the current chief justice - sacked earlier by Mr Musharraf - to his former position when opposition leader Nawaz Sharif threatened to lead a protest march into the capital, Islamabad.
Mr Sharif has reciprocated by declining to participate in recent moves by certain quarters to eject the president from office.
So, Mr Zardari has not done much, but that in itself may be an achievement.
He has overseen the return of democracy to his country, created more tolerance among rival politicians, presided over a series of military successes against militants and made some progress on domestic rights issues.
In a country as unpredictable as Pakistan it is impossible to say whether he will be able to build on these limited successes next year.