the widower of slain leader Benazir Bhutto and a relative political novice, was sworn in as president of Pakistan on Tuesday at an indoor ceremony in the presidential palace here. The new president, whose reputation is marked by allegations of corruption, follows the path to power of his father-in-law, Zulfikar Bhutto, who was prime minister in the 1970s — he was hanged in 1979 — and his wife, who served two terms.
Mr. Zardari, 53, took the oath of office from Chief Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar, a controversial start to his rule since Mr. Dogar was appointed under an emergency decree by the former military ruler, Pervez Musharraf, and has remained in office with Mr. Zardari’s support.
Accompanying Mr. Zardari at the ceremony were his two daughters, Bakhtawar and Asifa, and his son, Bilawal, who has been named to succeed Mr. Zardari as head of the Pakistan Peoples Party.
The Afghan president, Hamid Karzai — the only significant international figure at the ceremony — was invited by Mr. Zardari as a peacemaking gesture of conciliation. Mr. Karzai has blamed Pakistan for not controlling the Taliban who have attacked Afghan targets and attempted to assassinate Mr. Karzai in April.
Mr. Zardari showed skill and toughness in the last month as he engineered the resignation of Mr. Musharraf, and pushed his closest rival, Nawaz Sharif, out of the coalition government, a move that cleared the way for his ascension to the most powerful job in Pakistan.
He takes office as Pakistan, a nuclear power with 165 million people, faces two grave crises: an emboldened insurgency from the Taliban that is backed by Al Qaeda, and an unraveling economy that needs urgent assistance to avert default.
Like Ms. Bhutto, Mr. Zardari has courted the United States and Washington has responded warmly, saying that it welcomes the arrival of democratic government in Pakistan. The Bush administration has gone out of its way in the last few days to praise the new political alignment, saying that it offers the opportunity for increased cooperation in the campaign on terror.
Washington has taken a more overt role in trying to quash the Taliban insurgency in Pakistan’s tribal areas since it became clear that Mr. Zardari would become president. For the first time, helicopter-borne American Special Forces troops landed in the region last week and fought militants there.
Mr. Zardari has been outspoken about Pakistan’s ineffectiveness against the insurgents. “I think at the moment they definitely have the upper hand,” he said in an interview with the BBC earlier this month.
But exactly how he would go about reversing Pakistan’s fortunes against the Taliban, and how he would work with the Pakistani Army, the main instrument in the campaign against the terrorists, remained to be seen.
Historically, the Pakistan Peoples Party, founded by Zulfikar Bhutto, has had fraught relations with the army, and the Inter-Services Intelligence, the nation’s premier spy agency.
The chief of staff of the army, General Asfaq Parvez Kayani, sat in a prominent position at Tuesday’s inauguration.
Mr. Zardari begins his five-year term with mixed reviews from the public. He, as well as Ms. Bhutto and other politicians, received an amnesty on corruption allegations from Mr. Musharraf, but a cloud of suspicion remains over Mr. Zardari.
Referring to his 11 years in jail, the Daily Times, an English-language newspaper, ran the headline “Prison to Presidency” when Mr. Zardari won the election on Saturday.
A survey by Gallup Pakistan showed a lack of enthusiasm for any of the three presidential candidates contesting the electoral college vote last Saturday. The survey said 44 percent of the respondents did not approve of any of the candidates.
Mr. Zardari received a 26-percent approval rating in the poll, compared with 18 percent for Saeeduz Zaman Siddiqui, the candidate of the Pakistan Muslim League-N.
Gallup said that the nationwide survey was taken Aug. 31 and Sept. 1 among approximately 2,000 men and women. There was a margin of error of 3.5 points, Gallup said.
Mr. Zardari, whose previous government experience was as investment minister in his wife’s second government — some of the corruption charges stemmed from that period — faces daunting challenges, commentators have said in the past few days.
His supporters said Mr. Zardari, who spent three years in New York City after being released from jail in December 2003, had changed and would prove the skeptics wrong.
He will be a valuable asset to the United States and will be able to stave off strong anti-American sentiment and opposition to American strikes against the Taliban in the tribal areas, they said.
Others predicted that though he won the presidency by a handsome margin — 481 votes out of 702 — the coalition of smaller parties that supported the Pakistan Peoples Party in the Parliament could turn out to be fragile.
“His past and the fact that he has never held office are the main concerns of most Pakistanis,” said Ahmed Rashid, the author of Descent Into Chaos, a study of Pakistan since 9/11.
“But his presidency could determine nothing less than the future of his nuclear-armed state and the West’s war on terror.”
A major balancing act for Mr. Zardari will be how to allow the Americans to increase the attacks against the Taliban in the tribal areas — something Washington appears intent on doing — and while keeping public opinion in check. Anti-American sentiment is strong in Pakistan, especially concerning what is seen as American infringement on Pakistani sovereignty in the tribal areas.
“How long can he keep up this two-faced war: the Americans continuing to intrude into the tribal areas but the foreign minister saying: ‘We won’t tolerate it,’” said Babar Sattar, a constitutional lawyer who writes a column in the daily newspaper, The News.
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