General Musharraf Becomes Mr. Musharraf

Yesterday, Pervez Musharraf was sworn in as president of Pakistan without being a member of the military. He quit as head of the army on Wednesday. He is no longer a military dictator; he’s now a civilian dictator. After taking the oath of office, he promised, “Come hell or high water, elections will be held on January 8. Nobody derails it.” No need for that, now, as he has secured his position for another 5 years.

There is some hope that, as a civilian, President Musharraf feels secure enough to lift the state of emergency he declared at the beginning of the month; he claims it will happen December 16. There is no hope, though, that he will restore the Supreme Court justices he purged under that emergency. His handpicked court has ruled his election while in uniform was acceptable, but the previous and legitimate court was about to rule on the case and find it less than constitutional. This casts a pall of illegitimacy over his presidency.

Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto told the press in Karachi, “We welcome Musharraf’s decision to shed the uniform. Now the Pakistani Army has got a full-fledged chief and they can better perform their duties. We are not in a hurry to accept Pervez Musharraf as a civilian president.” Another former PM, Nawaz Sharif, is taking a tougher line, refusing to work with President Musharraf whether in uniform or not. His party is threatening to boycott the January elections and wants the old Supreme Court back.

Mr. Musharraf took time in his first speech out of uniform to attack Chief Justice Iftikhar M Chaudhry, claiming the judge was trying to prevent Pakistan’s return to democracy. He said the judge was part of a “well-thought out conspiracy.” He stated, “It is most unfortunate that some elements of the judiciary, the ex-chief justice, tried to derail this stage of democratic transition ... and this conspiracy was impacting negatively on the functioning of justice and the sovereignty of parliament. I had to act and I acted in the interests of Pakistan.” Martial law is an interesting way to protect the sovereignty of parliament.

Pakistan is still a long way from being a democratic state, and in many ways, it doesn’t matter what clothes Mr. Musharraf wears when he walks into his office. What matters now is how secure he feels in his position. As his sense of safety increases, so does the chance that the parliamentary elections in January won’t be fixed. But having ousted a democratically elected government in 1999, there is no reason to believe he won’t undermine the fairness of the voting to his own advantage. There is a long journey ahead.

© Copyright 2007 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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