WASHINGTON, July 28: President Pervez Musharraf has been weakened to the point that he is forced to seek a compromise with his opponents in an effort to salvage his government, says a US think-tank while commenting on the Musharraf-Benazir meeting.
In its latest report on Pakistan, Stratfor claims that President Musharraf has no option but to seek the help of mainstream political forces to deal with the growing crisis of governance and militancy.
“The recent tensions with Washington over the US threats to engage in unilateral military action against jihadists in the northwest -- which quickly followed the restoration of the Supreme Court's chief justice -- seem to have been the last straw,” the report said.
The think-tank claimed that on Friday, corps commanders and agency heads asked Gen. Musharraf to step down. But `stepping down does not necessarily mean that President Musharraf would leave the political scene altogether. Rather he likely will be forced to relinquish the post of army chief and try to stay on as a civilian president while sharing powers with a coalition government led by former prime minister Benazir Bhutto following parliamentary elections’.
The report, however, warns that it is difficult to say if President Musharraf will be successful in his efforts to reach a compromise ‘as these efforts could be too little too late’.
