|
August 19, 2008 Al-Jazeera -- Pervez
Musharraf, the Pakistani president, has
announced his decision to resign in a
televised address to the nation. It came
following speculation that he would step down
to avoid impeachment over accusations of
corruption.
The second of three brothers, Pervez Musharraf
was born into a middle class Muslim family in
India in August 1943. His family moved to the
newly created majority-Muslim state of
Pakistan following India's independence and
partition in 1947.
He spent seven years in Turkey, during his
civil servant father's posting to Ankara. In
1956 the family settled in Karachi.
Entering the Pakistan Military Academy in
1961, the keen sportsman first saw action in
the 1965 war against India and was decorated
for gallantry. He had to endure the army's
humiliating defeat by India in the 1971 war
and served for seven years in Pakistan's
special service commando group.
Promoted to the rank of general and named army
chief in October 1998, Musharraf overthrew
then prime minister Nawaz Sharif in 1999 in a
bloodless coup. He first led the country as
chief executive and then won a five-year
presidential term in a 2002 referendum which
critics say was rigged.
Long walk into oblivion
In the end, the Pakistani ruling coalition
only needed to summon the courage — something
they found in short supply for nearly five
months — to go for the kill.
Pervez Musharraf, the Pakistani president,
threw in the towel by announcing his
"resignation" despite promising a defiant
"fight to the finish".
The die was cast after all four provincial
assemblies making up the federation voted in
numbers to demand he seek a vote of confidence
or quit.
The beleaguered leader was also ditched by
his loyalists in all these federating units.
Alone and with no power base, Musharraf now
found that tremendous political and moral
pressure had been brought to bear on him to
resign.
The decision seemed inevitable though
skeptics continued to suspect he might use
presidential powers to dismiss the government
and parliament in a last ditch effort to save
himself from impeachment.
But this was always dependent on two
critical factors: support from the army, his
real power base, which he quit last year, and
Washington.
Depending on the army became unlikely after
his successor General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani
made a paradigm shift to move the army out of
politics and support democracy.
His fate was also sealed when Washington
finally came around to view Musharraf as a
liability.
Difficult decision
In the murky world of Pakistani politics,
things do not always follow a straight and
narrow path. This explains why political
pundits were not betting on a cornered
Musharraf simply walking into oblivion.
Musharraf twice sacked the chief justice
(the judge was reinstated briefly following a
popular movement) and deposed a number of
independent-minded judges in a sweeping
emergency measure only last year.
He feared they would overrule his
controversial re-election as president.
But more than the fear of becoming the
first Pakistani leader to be impeached,
Musharraf's paramount concern was his fate
after resigning.
In the last few days, even as the coalition
hammered out the impeachment knell,
interlocutors from Saudi Arabia and Britain
converged on Islamabad to resolve the impasse
after the retired general announced through
his allies that he would fight to stay on.
The US employed less-visible means but
pushed through with the same message:
encourage Musharraf to call it a day and ask
the coalition not impeach or try the embattled
leader.
Quid pro quo
Pakistani media recently reported that
Musharraf was seeking indemnity for his acts
as president and army chief in return for his
resignation.
He was also said to seek guarantees of
presidential level security if he stayed in
Pakistan.
However, apart from agreeing to "adequate"
security, the coalition refused to offer
him immunity from prosecution for his
controversial decisions, such as the
extra-constitutional step of imposing
emergency law and deposing judges last year.
Musharraf has survived at least three known
attempts on his life. He faces threat from
extremists, predominantly al-Qaeda, and other
militant groups because of his support for the
US war on terror.
The continuing terror war has led to great
upheaval within Pakistan, making Musharraf
intensely unpopular.
In an opinion poll conducted last month by
the International Republican Institute (IRI),
a non-profit group based in Washington, 83 per
cent of Pakistanis said they wanted Musharraf
to resign immediately. His job approval rating
also slipped to an all-time low of 11 per
cent.
Next residence
Though he continues to swear he will remain
in Pakistan — he has a farm house on the
outskirts of Islamabad - three foreign
destinations have been mentioned as a possible
future home for Musharraf.
These include Boston in the US, where his
son resides; Jeddah in Saudi Arabia, which
hosted former premier Nawaz Sharif (deposed by
Musharraf in 1999); and Turkey, where
Musharraf spent his childhood.
However, Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary
of state, recently denied that the option of
asylum was on the table. News reports suggest
Turkey, too, has declined to host the former
president, fearing an unstable situation in
the event al-Qaeda chooses to pursue Musharraf
there.
This leaves Saudi Arabia, which has given
conflicting signals about whether to host yet
another high-profile exiled leader from the
South Asian nation.
But The News, Pakistan's leading
English daily, quoted sources on Monday saying
that Riyadh had told Islamabad it was no
longer interested in becoming a permanent
residence for exiled Pakistani leaders.
As throughout his nine-year reign,
Musharraf will once again be challenged to
live up to his word: this time on where he
wants to live out of power.
In his last public pledge on the issue in
June, he said: "I will live and die in
Pakistan, there is no other way".
Easier said than
done
Meanwhile, the election of a new president
and reinstatement of deposed judges is
expected to test the uneasy ruling alliance of
the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) and Pakistan
Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N).
The dominant view is that the desire to
remove the former president was the glue - and
part of an understanding - that held them
together following a spectacular showing at
the February 18 national elections, which saw
Musharraf allies drubbed.
For starters, the PPP will be under
tremendous pressure to restore the judges
Musharraf deposed.
Pakistanis are not likely to quickly forget
that the PPP has twice failed to restore them
despite public assurances.
The PPP fears the deposed judiciary will
revoke the indemnity granted to Asif Zardari,
its leader, under a so-called National
Reconciliation Ordinance.
Musharraf had decreed the ordinance last
year, removing decade-old corruption cases
against Zardari and his wife Benazir Bhutto,
the slain former premier.
However, PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif, who
pushed Zardari into making a pitch for
Musharraf's ouster early this month, will
unlikely settle for anything less than the
reinstatement of judges and a consensus
president.
In that, the end of Musharraf's rule may
signal the beginning of real political drama. |
Save
