It was an auspicious day for the PPP when its Co-Chairman Asif Ali Zardari took the oath as the 12th President of Pakistan on September 9. The occasion is all the more important because this is for the second time that a PPP leader has become president of the country. About three decades ago, founding chairman of the PPP, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, took oath of the President at a time when Pakistan was truncated and the economy, law and order and foreign policy was facing severe problems and the country had little hope to overcome all these gigantic and multiple difficulties to survive. But the statesmanship of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and his 11 years tenure as minister in the Field Marshal Ayub Khan's cabinet gave him the vision and skills not only to give hope to the country but also to make it a viable, vibrant and nuclear power. President Asif Ali Zardari has also inherited a messy economy and politically uncertainty. Does he possess skills needed to steer the country out the current economic and political morass? Asif Ali Zardari is no comparison with Z.A Bhutto and if there is any it is like a giant and dwarf both mentally and experience wise. Z A Bhutto was an extremely educated man and an avid leader and he did not carry any moral or corruption baggage when he crossed the threshold into the presidency. He was an internationally known personality with big connections with almost all the top presidents, kings and prime ministers and above all he had a bureaucracy who had confidence in the president and a military establishment who was lying low because of defeat in East Pakistan. There was nobody to challenge his authority and everybody accepted what he planned. Despite his missteps in Balochistan and NWFP, Z.A Bhutto had a steely grip over administration. As a man who empowered the poor and have not, he had huge respect among masses. If compared with the qualities of Z.A Bhutto, Asif Zardari has little to show. He has just formal education and had not attended any national or foreign universities, which have always been considered as good training grounds for the leaders. Observers, who monitoring the changing political scenario of the country are of the view that after taking oath to the office of President Asif Ali Zardari, in his maiden speech should have announced some measures of relief to the common man. He missed a huge opportunity to make a deep popular impact on the poor citizens. He should have announced cheap flour prices irrespective of what it would have cost to the national exchequer. His party since its inception had always done some thing good for the poor but here was the Co-Chairman of PPP, oblivious of what poor people are under going due to rising prices of wheat flour and other grains. On the contrary, the civil bureaucracy, done its job neatly by issuing notification of 31 percent increase in power tariff on the same.