Pakistani President's exit appears to be inevitable

Having declared martial law against his own regime after eight years of authoritarian rule, Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf has nowhere left to turn.

Peter Goodspeed in National Post ( Canada ) November 14, 2007

(The Western Press, as is apparent from the column below, is still fixated on a deal with Ms. Bhutto. It is right in saying that it is time for Musharraf to go but the people are not rooting for Benazir. The civil society has taken control from the political parties. They have no experience of true democracy; they associate it with the criminals in control of public purse. But the people of Pakistan now have experience of: 1) independent judiciary, 2) free media, 3) rule of Sharia by force in Waziristan and Swat, 4) rise of India sponsored insurrection in Baluchistan . They do not expect the politicians (and elections) to restore the first two and fight the latter two. At the moment all they want is the TV channels being switched back on, and the re-instatement of the Judges who refused to take oath under the PCO. Alongside neutral and professional armed forces, there would be the institutional pre-requisites for good governance and dealing with extremes and excesses within the state.)

Under a state of emergency supposedly designed to fight Islamist extremists, he has in the past 10 days suspended the constitution, usurped the powers of the judiciary, parliament and the press, and arrested thousands of his "moderate" political opponents.

Under withering international pressure, he promised to hold general elections in February. When his international allies complained, he volunteered to move that date forward to Jan. 9 -- as long as the state of emergency, which makes it illegal to criticize anything he does or says, remains.

Not surprisingly, he has not defused the crisis he created. In fact, Gen. Musharraf seems to have dug himself so deeply into a corner that he is now of limited usefulness to virtually everyone.

Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who for weeks kept open the possibility of a power-sharing deal with Gen. Musharraf, abandoned the idea yesterday. For the first time, she demanded he retire from politics and said she will never serve as prime minister under him.

U.S. President George W. Bush, meanwhile, is rushing a special envoy to Islamabad this week to meet Gen. Musharraf face-to-face to press him to end emergency rule and hold free and fair elections.

John Negroponte, the second top official in the U.S. State Department, is expected to offer Gen. Musharraf one piece of advice -- "roll back the emergency or resign."

If Gen. Musharraf cannot see his way clear to cut a deal with Ms. Bhutto and her allies, Washington may want to see if Ms. Bhutto can reach an accommodation with Gen. Musharraf's successor as Pakistan 's military chief.

Mr. Negroponte's mission conjures up memories of the downfall of Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines in 1985, when, after weeks of massive "people power" demonstrations in Manila , Senator Paul Laxalt of Nevada was dispatched to talk to the embattled Philippine president.

Marcos, like Gen. Musharraf, wanted to cling to power at all costs and threatened to destroy his country's hopes for stability. Sen. Laxalt did not mince his words, telling Marcos "to cut and cut cleanly." Within 16 hours of receiving the message, the Marcos family was flying to Hawaii with as much loot as they could carry.

As a valued ally in the war on terror, Gen. Musharraf may be offered a more dignified and gradual exit. But he will be pressured to restore constitutional rule, to resign from the armed forces and to hold free elections on schedule.

The moment Gen. Musharraf sheds his uniform, he will lose his power base and become a mere ornament in Pakistan 's politics.

Everyone, including Gen. Musharraf, knows that. They may already be preparing for a post-Musharraf Pakistan .

That raises a whole set of new questions, not least of which is whether Ms. Bhutto can rule her fractured country. She's already had two cracks at the job and failed miserably both times.

Ms. Bhutto's governments had one of the worst human rights records in Pakistan 's history. Corruption reached epic levels and she and her husband were accused of taking up to US$1.5-billion in bribes and kickbacks.

It was also during her first term as prime minister that Pakistan 's military helped create the Taliban in Afghanistan . If Pakistan ever does have free elections, there is no guarantee the result will be a government that is moderate, secular, pro-Western and anti-extremist.