The 2008 TIME 100 Finalists

AGE: 64
OCCUPATION: President of Pakistan
NUMBER OF TIME COVERS: 0
PREVIOUS APPEARANCES ON THE TIME 100: 1

PRO: A staunch counterterrorism ally following the events of 9/11, the former army chief has overseen a period of relatively robust economic growth in an extremely troubled area of the world. His willingness, under pressure, to doff the mantle of army chief showed that while he was exigent, he wasn't tyrannical.

CON: Slain former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan Peoples Party accused him of either orchestrating or facilitating her assassination. Crushed under a wave of pro-Bhutto indignation — and loathing from Pakistan's left and right — his political allies got a sound spanking in the Feb. 18 parliamentary elections, leaving him politically isolated as two hostile factions form a new government. Expect a midnight flight out of town very soon.