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| November 27, 2007 | Tuesday | Ziqa’ad 16, 1428 |
Transition or beginning of drastic transformation?
ISLAMABAD, Nov 26: It is finally happening. For the first time in eight years there are clear indications that within the next forty eight hours Gen Pervez Musharraf will bow out as chief of the army and, by doing so, will complete his own transition from a military ruler to a civilian president.
Still, there are cynics who are not prepared to believe the official announcement, and would like to wait for the exact moment, most probably between the night of November 28 and 29, when it is expected to happen. And they can’t be blamed, mainly because of the history of broken promises that has kept him in the role of both the army chief and the president for the last eight years.
After remaining the COAS for 9 years 1 month and 22 days — the longest period after Gen Ziaul Haq — Gen Musharraf is to hand over the command of the army to Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, who is already being described as the COAS-in-waiting. The day will also mark the start of an entirely new, and perhaps, a more tumultuous career for Mr Musharraf, who as a controversial civilian president will have to oversee an electoral process that, if not handled with utmost finesse, may prove to be his Waterloo.
And there are observers who believe that what Gen Musharraf is hoping to be a smooth transition may turn out to be the beginning of a drastic transformation.
Gen Musharraf, by his own admission, has been an adventurous person all his life. His military career is replete with incidents both controversial and otherwise. From the Kargil war to the military coup, and from the post-9/11 turnaround on the Taliban front to the peace initiative with India are a few of the bold but controversial steps taken by him since he was elevated to the post of COAS in October 1998.
Born in August 1943 in Delhi, Mr Musharraf was commissioned into Pakistan army in 1964. He fought the two full-fledged wars that Pakistan had with India in 1965 and 1971, and served in a number of key staff positions, from heading a battalion of SSG commandos to being the director general military operations, and corps commander Mangla, before getting the coveted post of the chief of army staff on Oct 7, 1998, after Gen Jehangir Karamat resigned at the insistence of the-then prime minister Nawaz Sharif.
But if Mr Sharif’s idea was to bring in a rather docile army chief who would remain subservient to him, he was soon proven wrong. Differences between the two started cropping up soon, and spiralled out of control during the Kargil conflict with India. As Mr Sharif tried to sack him, only a year after having made him the COAS, the commanders loyal to Gen Musharraf reacted and, in their chief’s absence from the country, overthrew Mr Sharif’s government in a bloodless coup.
Gen Musharraf was now the most powerful man in the country. And though he initially described himself as a ‘reluctant coup-maker’, he soon began to enjoy power, and a stage came when many say he started regarding himself as being indispensable.
During this period, Gen Musharraf introduced several key reforms, used the international situation to his benefit to turn around the country’s economy, distanced the military establishment from its age-old policy of promoting Islamic militancy and tried to encourage what he called ‘enlightened moderation’.
During this period he also gave the country a parliament of sorts, but even when the country had an elected prime minister, for people at home and abroad, he was always regarded as the real ruler. The message was quite clear that as long as he was there, the buck will continue to stop at him. And perhaps that is what made him controversial in the eyes of not just the Islamists but also many liberals and moderates, who turned against him particularly after he took on the country’s superior judiciary.
Gen Musharraf is convinced that his presence is a must for ensuring the continuation of the policies he has introduced and for what he calls a smooth transition to true democracy. So even after retiring as the army chief, he would be taking oath for another term as the country’s head of the state — something that has become a major point of controversy in recent months.
The controversy surrounding the presidential elections notwithstanding, a huge challenge awaits Gen Musharraf once he takes oath as a civilian president. Leaders of the two biggest opposition parties, Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, are back to haunt him, and his king’s party is utterly confused, if not nervous, about the prospects in the forthcoming elections.
But perhaps the real challenge for President Musharraf will come from within, as he will be expected to realise that he would no more be as powerful as he once was. A new army chief, no matter how loyal and trusted, will be commanding the troops according to his own vision, and the new prime minister emerging from January’s elections will certainly like to assert a bit more than the previous prime ministers.
In such a situation, the only way for President Musharraf to survive will be to accept his role as a somewhat weaker player in the so-called “troika”. With the next prime minister bound to be a stronger person than say, Shaukat Aziz, and the new army chief prepared to extricate the armed forces from political affairs, such a position will be the only real guarantee for his untroubled stay in the Presidency.
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