By MATTHEW PENNINGTON, Associated Press Writer 46 minutes ago
Pervez Musharraf has survived combat as a career soldier and assassination attempts as president. Now the will of his own people has pushed him to the precipice.
A sweeping opposition win in elections has diminished the U.S.-backed leader's political standing as never before and many predict his days in power are numbered.
Musharraf has already given up his command of the army, and his rock-bottom popularity at home has diminished his effectiveness to his Western allies in the fight against Islamic extremism.
"I don't see him surviving. It is just a question of time," said Shafqat Mahmood, a political analyst who is a prominent commentator in Pakistani newspapers and television.
Monday's elections, in which the ruling party mustered just 15 percent of the vote, exposed how little support Musharraf has among Pakistan's 160 million people. Many are alarmed at rising Islamic militancy, weary of prolonged military rule and struggling with high food prices.
The parties of slain former prime minister Benazir Bhutto and former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, whom Musharraf ousted in a 1999 coup, came close to winning the two-thirds majority needed to impeach the president. According to nearly complete official returns, Bhutto's party has 33.6 percent of National Assembly seats, and Sharif's 25.9 percent.
"The fact that parties opposed to Musharraf won the election was a clear denunciation of his actions and politics," Mahmood said. Key aides of the president, including the chairman of the ruling party, a former top government spokesman and its foreign minister, even failed to win parliamentary seats.
On Tuesday, Sharif reiterated his demand for Musharraf to step down "” recalling the president's statement last year that he would resign if he ever lost the support of the people.
"He has closed his eyes. He has said before that he would go when the people want him to do so and now the people have given their verdict," Sharif told reporters in Lahore.
The weight of public animosity derives partly from Musharraf's tight alliance with the White House in fighting the Taliban and al-Qaida "” a battle few now see in Pakistan's interests.
Yet perhaps more critically, it reflected anger over the military's dominance for the past eight years, and Musharraf's maneuvering to remain in power, which culminated in the state of emergency he declared in November to stop the Supreme Court from overturning his re-election as president.
"Instead of being the unifying figure he is pretending to be, Musharraf has led Pakistan into a dark alley," said Rasul Baksh Rais, a political science professor at the Lahore University of Management Sciences. "The only way he can survive now is through manipulation, and the more he does that, the more public sentiment will go against him."
Although Musharraf says he would like to work with the new government "” even saying he wants to be regarded as a "father figure" by the new prime minister "” he will struggle to mend fences from his executive excesses during a year of political turmoil.
Desperately trying to justify his emergency declaration, Musharraf has been reduced to abusing the deposed chief justice, Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry "” branding him the "scum of the earth" in an interview in Britain's Independent newspaper.
The elections were widely perceived in Pakistan and abroad as a triumph for democracy and the nation's "moderate majority" "” a phrase used Tuesday by visiting Sen. Joe Biden. But Musharraf now faces a formidable task to persuade the victorious political parties he is a man they can work with.
While the leader of Bhutto's party, her widowed husband Asif Ali Zardari, has yet to rule out working with Musharraf, most analysts say the retired general's deep unpopularity would make him a political liability.
"'Go Musharraf Go!' will pick up very quickly," said Rais, referring to the protest slogan raised by lawyers who have rallied alongside Chaudhry. "It will be his (Zardari's) choice whether to be with the forces of change or with an individual widely despised in Pakistan."
Athar Minallah, a prominent Supreme Court advocate lobbying for Chaudhry's release, said that unless the next parliament restored judges axed by Musharraf by March 7, lawyers from across Pakistan would "lay siege to Islamabad" "” not an enticing prospect for a new civilian government.
If the pre-emergency judiciary is reinstated, it would likely revisit the case that led to its ouster: whether Musharraf's re-election was constitutional. That could again endanger his position and lead to another political crisis.
Hasan-Askari Rizvi, a political analyst, said if a coalition government of Bhutto and Sharif's parties is able to win the support of independent lawmakers and so achieve a two-third parliamentary majority, it is likely to seek Musharraf's impeachment.
Still, the United States is urging the elected government's leaders to work with Musharraf, a former special forces commando who has escaped at least two al-Qaida assassination attempts since he allied Pakistan with the U.S.-led war on terror and who remains a trusted ally.
"Ultimately President Musharraf is still the president of Pakistan and certainly we would hope that whoever becomes prime minister and whoever winds up in charge of the new government would be able to work with him and with all other factions," State Department spokesman Tom Casey said Tuesday.
Bhutto's party could agree to that to avoid confrontation "” and upsetting impoverished Pakistan's chief international aid donor, the United States "” as it comes to grips with government after nearly 12 years out of power, said Zaffar Abbas, an editor at the Dawn newspaper.
Sharif, whose party fared better than expected in the election and won control of the key province of Punjab, might be willing to compromise on Musharraf's survival provided other parties are seen to take responsibility for letting him off the hook.
But Musharraf would have to "learn to live compromises and a very reduced role. If he doesn't, it's a recipe for disaster for the democratic system and for President Musharraf himself," Abbas said.