[Reader-list] End of Pervez Musharraf; How soon, How Bad?

[Kashmir Affairs]

The end of President
Musharraf: How Soon, How Bad?

By Murtaza
Shibli

Editor, Kashmir
Affairs, London

www.kashmiraffairs.org
 

 

30th May 2008

 

In May 2006 while sitting at the house of
Kashmiri resistance leader, Syed Ali Shah Geelani in Srinagar
on the Indian side of Kashmir, Geelani told me about his interesting meeting
with President Musharraf at Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi. After talking about the lack of
international support for Kashmir, Musharraf sought Geelani’s support for his
new Kashmir policy.  Irritated by his
lecturing, when Geelani asked about the viability of his new policy, Musharraf
retorted, “Bush and Blair are with me and they support this formula”. To Geelani’s
further remark that it would not be acceptable to the people of Pakistan or
Kashmiris, pat came the same reply of Bush and Blair support. With Tony Blair
gone a while back and President Bush having not long to go, General Musharraf’s
options are fast running out. And it seems that his end is very near. 

 

The speculation of the end comes after
the current Chief of the Army Staff, General Pervez Ashfaq Kayani held a three
and a half hour long meeting with the President on Wednesday 28th
May that went till midnight. According to the leading Pakistani daily The
News, General Kayani looked his former boss ‘in the eye’ claiming that the
‘longest one-on-one encounter’ was significant ‘as it took place after day-long
consultations of the Army chief with his important commanders’. A day earlier,
General Kayani shifted Musharraf’s loyal commander Brigadier Aasim Bajwa from
the elite Triple One Brigade; a group that has taken active part in all the previous
military coups in the country’s turbulent history. In addition, the new Army
chief removed and replaced the elite commandos that guarded the President’s
security. Although the official version is that these transfers are routine, two
of Pakistan’s
top defence analysts and former Army Generals – General Talat Mahmood and General
Mueen-ud-Din Haider have termed these replacements as extraordinary. It is
important to note that these changes came only a few days after the rumours
that President Musharraf was trying to replace the army chief through his Constitutional
power as the President to appoint new Army Chief.    

 

There are indications which suggest that Musharraf
might be sent packing as soon as this weekend. According to the latest reports,
special security has been put in place in the twin cities of Islamabad
and Rawalpindi ‘in
view of significant impending developments’ and special contingents have also
been deployed at important installations as well as the Army House. The former
Army Chief General Mirza Aslam Beg is claiming that Musharraf has been put
under virtual house arrest by the Army who is finalising his departure,
possibly to Turkey.
The News, a leading daily from Pakistan in one of its news reports
claimed that a plane from a neighbouring country is waiting as the ‘packing at
an important house in Rawalpindi is in full swing as the modalities have also
been finalised for the exit of the significant family.’

 

The situation has changed dramatically
over the past few days as the Persident is being further isolated politically. Last
week, Asif Zardari, the main leader of the ruling Pakistan People’s Party (PPP)
threw caution to winds and openly attacked Musharraf calling him as part of the
problem and asked for his resignation. When his attention was driven towards
rising price of commodities and growing public anger, his response that people
can bear the price rise but they cannot bear the presence of Pervez Musharraf
in the office anymore. According to Pakistani observers, Zardari hardened his
stand against President Musharraf due to growing public anger and impatience
with the restoration of judiciary that PPP and its leading ally Pakistan Muslim
League-Nawaz (PML-N) had promised during their election campaign. The
government’s failure to restore judges has already created fissures in the
coalition as PML-N ministers resigned in protest, putting PPP leadership under
public scanner. 

 

There is also growing media pressure on
the PPP government for the restoration of judiciary and many news reports and
commentators have directed their anger towards Asif Zardari for the failure to
oust Musharraf or restore judiciary. There is anger within the PPP ranks as
well. This was evident in a recent PPP meeting headed by the co-chair Asif
Zardari wherein many party leaders led a virtual revolt on these issues. Many
PPP members believe that going soft with President Musharraf is eroding the
party image and that of the newly formed government. Responding to the public
anger and political pressure, the PPP announced last week that it was cutting
President’s powers through a comprehensive constitutional amendment, turning
him from an all-powerful leader into a ceremonial figurehead. Asif Ali Zardari’s
changed stance on President was reflected by the Prime Minister Gilani who  in his latest statement did not rule out the
possibility of impeachment against the President saying that his government can
manage the required support from the law makers. 

 

Although the US is still backing Musharraf and
pushing for direct talks between Asif Zardari and the President Musharraf,
there is hardly any incentive for Zardari. In fact, such a route is fraught
with umpteen dangers as the pressure from multiple sources to dispense with the
painful Musharraf legacy is growing. The visible American support is also going
against Musharraf as he is seen as a total US stooge with hardly any appeal or
utility for the Pakistani masses. Following its path of strategic blunders in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Bush
administration is obsessed with Musharraf at the cost of eroding US influence
in the region. It is no surprise that despite pumping billions of dollars in
aid and assistance during the last 60 years of Pakistan’s
existence, majority of Pakistanis have a highly unfavourable view of the United States. Suspected
‘American hand’ is an alibi for all the failures and pathologies that haunt Pakistan today.
By supporting Musharraf’s undemocratic and dictatorial rule, the US has even lost support and goodwill of the secular
civil society of Pakistan
that has been spearheading a movement for social change and independent
judiciary. Presenting a slice of Pakistani feelings, the Pakistani newspapers,
web forums and blogs are littered with anti-American feelings and how Pakistan’s civil society and intelligentsia feel
betrayed by the US
through its support to a President that is widely resented and hated. It is
widely believed that it is due the American support that Musharraf is still
holding on to his presidency and many Pakistanis have termed it as the insult
for their nation that voted against dictatorship and overwhelmingly chose
secular politicians to lead the country. Referring to the US influence in Pakistan,
one of the Pakistan’s senior
and secular politician Rasool Baksh Palejo claimed that Pakistan will become America’s
Waterloo and prove more disastrous than Iraq and Afghanistan. 

 

As the pressure on the President mounts,
the US
and the Western support may not be able to sustain Musharraf for long and his
‘Bush and Blair’ blurb seems to have lost relevance. Emboldened by the actions
of new Army chief as well as the continuing public anger, the politicians are now
calling for Musharraf’s head. While the former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharief has
repeated his demand for impeachment, the PPP is also toeing a hard line with
the party chief Asif Zardari calling him the main impediment between the public
and the government. Shahbaz Sharief, senior leader of the PML-N has called upon
Musharraf to step down immediately or else he will be dragged out of his throne
with no honour left. Another senior leader and head of the party in largest
province Punjab, Zulfiqar Khosa has gone
further and demanded that Musharraf should be put on exit control list and
banned from leaving the country. He has also called for full investigation into
the ‘crimes’ committed by the Musharraf regime and flayed those are talking
about safe passage for the President. The angry voices that call for President Musharraf’s
head will be further strengthen as the lawyers movement is preparing for a country
wide ‘long march’ against the government’s failure to reinstate judges widely
perceived to be opposed by the US administration. The planned march would be
led by the PPP leader and prominent lawyer Atizaz Ahsan, who has also called
for trail of President Musharraf. 

 

The current situation has forced Musharraf’s once
close political allies into retreat. The Pakistan Muslim Qaid (PML-Q) and
Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) have been strong supporters of the President in
the past, but are watching the current developments without offering him any
support. The indications are that the crisis might force the new civilian
government and the Army to act together and perhaps remove the sticky president
by force. Such a move would prove highly popular and reinstate the public image
of both the Army and Pakistan People’s Party and its government. Many leading
newspapers are also calling for Musahrraf to resign. Pakistan’s
leading Urdu daily Nawa-i-Waqt, in an editorial headlined "King
Musharraf," said he was running out of options and should learn a lesson
from Nepal's
King Gyanendra, who was forced out as monarch this week after its parliament
voted to make the country a republic. Another influential English daily, The
Daily Times also advised the President to resign adding that by delaying
his departure, Musharraf would "only add to the number of his opponents
and make them increasingly determined." The odds are heavily staked
against the former elite Army commando turned President whose space for any
manoeuvre is shrinking by the moment.

 

The pressure is also building on General
Musahrraf to leave the Army House, his chosen seat of power, despite his
retirement as the Army Chief last year. Scores of retired Army Generals
including his former colleagues and mentors recently launched a public campaign
to force him out of the Army House. To humiliate him further, a petition was
submitted in the court to remove him from the illegal possession of the
building. According to some reports, the new Army Chief General Kayani has also
asked Musharraf to leave the Army House and wait for his fate in the
Presidential House. Indications are that the President Musharraf is leaving the
Army House, but his move into the Presidential Palace is highly uncertain. As
the whole country is gunning for his blood, the distance between the Musharraf
and his new seat of power is getting wider. It seems his career may be
extinguished soon and he may never reach the Presidential Palace.  

 

 

The writer is Srinagar
born security and political analyst based in London. He is also editor of quarterly
Kashmir Affairs – www.kashmiraffairs.org




      __________________________________________________________
Sent from Yahoo! Mail.
A Smarter Email http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/nowyoucan.html