AFTER more than a week of conflicting stories about the state of President Zardari's health, his spokesperson and the physician treating him have issued statements that appear to provide some reliable information: Mr Zardari is convalescing in a private residence in Dubai and his doctor suggests that the tests undergone by the president produced normal results. Still missing, though, is information about what triggered the episode that led to Mr Zardari being rushed to Dubai and when he will return to Pakistan. Given the speculation that erupted after his sudden illness, the PPP will need to consider sharing more information with the media and the public. If not a date by which the president will return to Pakistan — if a date of return is announced and Mr Zardari does not return, yet more speculation will occur — then at least a recorded video statement by the president could help assuage concerns about his health and fitness to hold public office. The PPP's information machinery failed spectacularly when Mr Zardari first fell ill; they must do better going forward.

However, Mr Zardari must know that he can simply not afford to leave his return to Pakistan open-ended. His own party's prime minister, Yousuf Raza Gilani, stood on the floor of the Senate on Wednesday and appealed to parliamentarians to ensure that the assemblies complete their term. Why? What threat was Mr Gilani hinting at? And the prime minister also indulged in some conspiratorial talk of his own, suggesting that were Mr Zardari to have been admitted to a Pakistani hospital the president's life could be in danger. Taken on top of the talk by PML-N leader Nawaz Sharif that democracy should not be derailed, it amounts to something quite serious when the country's top civilian political leaders are hinting at the possibility of an interruption of the democratic process.

In this situation, Mr Zardari needs to return to Pakistan to try and calm nerves and quell speculation that refuses to die down. Health concerns are obviously paramount but where the doctors treating him are asserting that all tests were normal and Mr Zardari is fit enough to be discharged to a private residence in Dubai, surely the short flight to Islamabad will not be impossible to make soon. Like it or not, the reality of Pakistan is that threats to the democratic process do lurk in the shadows. It is the responsibility of the civilian political leadership to deal with those threats effectively. And as president of the country, part of that responsibility falls on the shoulders of Mr Zardari. He must return soon.