When the son of a cinema owner wed the daughter of a legendary president, he told reporters that he had no taste for politics. "One politician in a family is enough," Zardari said.

But since Bhutto was slain in December, Zardari has shown an enormous appetite for what he once claimed to reject.

He has taken control of his wife's Pakistan Peoples Party, led it to its ruling perch in the government, and, on the eve of a parliamentary vote, has positioned himself as the leading contender to replace his wife's onetime nemesis, Pervez Musharraf, as president.

If Zardari is elected today, his ascension will consolidate his party's hold on the government and bring on a new era in U.S.-Pakistan relations after years of U.S. backing for Musharraf's military rule.

Faced with U.S. demands to quash the threat from the rising Taliban insurgency within the country's borders, Pakistan's next president will have to navigate the choppy waters of the country's alliance with the United States at a time when anti-American sentiment here has never been stronger.

Analysts here say Zardari may be just the man for the job. He is a former resident of New York's affluent Upper East Side. He often chooses well-tailored two-piece suits over the loose-fitting salwar-kameez that is the de rigueur dress of politicians in this majority Muslim nation.

"He is much more aligned with the U.S., and even more so after his wife's death," said retired Lt. Gen. Talat Masood, a top political analyst here.

"I think the American relationship with Pakistan stays the same," Zardari said in a recent interview with Newsweek's Lally Weymouth.

He added: "The experiment with the general has failed. Therefore, the U.S. has decided to support the democratic forces. [The civilian government] will be weak for the moment, but we will learn from our mistakes, and we will go on and improve."

Zardari is known to many here as "Mr. 10 Percent" because of allegations he raked in millions of dollars in kickbacks during his wife's two terms as prime minister in the late 1980s and early '90s.

He spent 11 years in prison on corruption charges lodged against him when he was a member of Parliament and minister in Bhutto's government. But he was never convicted and in recent months, Pakistan's government dropped the case as part of an amnesty deal that Bhutto negotiated with Musharraf last year.

But the case continues to haunt Zardari. Since he declared his candidacy Aug. 23, details have emerged from the array of corruption cases lodged against him not only in Pakistan, but also in Switzerland, Spain and Britain.

Late last month, questions regarding Zardari's mental health surfaced after court documents in the now-defunct British corruption case were made public.

According to the documents, first reported by the Financial Times, a New York psychiatrist diagnosed Zardari as suffering from dementia, post-traumatic stress disorder and depression.

The parties of the two candidates opposing Zardari in the presidential race have savaged him, saying his history of mental illness should bar him from running for office.

News of the psychological reports and reports that a Swiss court would soon release about $60 million in frozen assets to Zardari after closing its case against him prompted criticism from Sen. Mushahid Hussain, the presidential candidate for Musharraf's former Pakistan Muslim League-Q party.

"In the West, such a controversial track record would make any person clearly ineligible to hold such a high office," Hussain said.

Zardari declined repeated requests for an interview with the Washington Post. But in a column that the newspaper published this week, he called the allegations of bribery and money-laundering "politically motivated."

Aides have also sought to recast his reported mental-health problems as a natural but temporary result of years of torture. "He is a remarkable and resilient person," said Farah Ispahani, a top spokeswoman for Zardari's party. "He is in extremely good health in every sense."