LONDON, Nov 17: President Pervez Musharraf said on Friday he had never done anything “unconstitutional” except for imposing emergency rule on Nov 3.
In an interview with the BBC, the president hit out at foreign criticism of his rule since March 9 — when he tried to dismiss Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry.
“Before March I was very good. Suddenly did I go mad after March or suddenly my personality changed, am I Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde or what is it?” he said.
“Am I such a person?
“Please go into the details, the causes. What I am doing? Have I done anything unconstitutional? Yes, I did it on Nov 3.
“Did I do it before? Not once.”
In reply to a question about People’s Party chief Benazir Bhutto, the president accused her of wanting to avoid elections, saying her party was unlikely to win.
The interviewer sought Gen Musharraf’s comments on a statement by Ms Bhutto describing the caretaker government as “unacceptable” and “biased”.
The president said: “It is she actually who may not be wanting elections.
“And it is she who may want to go on to the agitational war because she would not want to go into elections because her party is not in a state to win at all.”—Agencies
M. Ziauddin adds from London: The president hit back against all his domestic and international critics by warning them that if he went, the nuclear assets would fall into the hands of extremists.
At the same time he blamed the judiciary and politicians for forcing him to impose emergency rule in the country.
The daily Telegraph, reproducing his BBC interview, on Saturday reported that Gen Musharraf said that the security of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons depended on a strong military rule, as he defended his decision to impose emergency.
The president said he was not the one who was trying to derail democracy, insisting that he had always been committed to an open and representative government.
”Who is trying to derail the political and democratic process? Am I? Or is it some elements in the Supreme Court — the chief justice and his coterie... and now some elements in the political field?”
“Did I go mad? Or suddenly, my personality changed? Am I Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde?” he asked in an interview with the BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
He also criticised Ms Bhutto, saying she feared the polls, set for January, because she was corrupt and unpopular.
She said Ms Bhutto was ‘the darling of the West’ but she would not like to go into an election because her party is not in a state to win at all.”Therefore, I will certainly go for the election, in spite of any agitation by her. We will not allow her to do that,” he said.
Meanwhile, George Walden of the Times (Democracy for all!: Well, not quite) asked the UK government to formulate an unambiguous policy towards Pakistan which in his opinion should be based on principles of democracy.
Recognising that it was hard not to feel a moment’s sympathy with President Musharraf when, defending the imposition of martial law, he said that his first priority was to save the Pakistani nation, rather than install a questionable democracy, Mr Walden said here there was no room for such nuance.
“We may wonder what kind of protection an unruly Pakistani democracy might offer against terrorism, but then martial law is ugly…
“Foreign policy is inevitably about expediency, but there must be principle somewhere underneath. For the moment there is a case for pushing human rights and democracy in nuclear Pakistan harder than in stable Saudi Arabia.”
