Adil Najam
In a nationally televised speech, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, President of Pakistan, has just announced his resignation, pre-empting a move to impeach him by the parliament.
This post has been updated to add news photos from this momentous day in Pakistan’s political history. The pictures speak eloquently of the moods and thoughts of the day. (Scroll down to see the video of Gen. Musharraf’s resignation speech).
Participate in a poll on what might be Pakistan’s future post-Musharraf, here. Watch the video of the speech below.
Here is a Pervez Musharraf time-line, published in The News:
August 1943: Born in Delhi, India
1964: Joins Pakistani army.
1998: Becomes army chief of staff.
October 1999: Seizes power in a bloodless military coup, overthrowing the prime minister, Nawaz Sharif. In response, the Commonwealth suspends Pakistan’s membership.
June 20 2001: Makes himself president, replacing Rafiq Tarar, while remaining head of the army. Tarar is forced out of office when the parliament that elected him is dissolved.
July 2001: Holds first meeting with the Indian prime minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, at Agra in India. No progress is made because of differences over the disputed territory of Kashmir.
September 2001: George Bush courts Musharraf, asking him to join him in his “war on terror” and help defeat the Taliban in neighbouring Afghanistan. The US president promises Pakistan $1bn in aid.
April 2002: Wins a referendum giving him another five years in office. Observers criticise the referendum as blighted by irregularities.
May 2002: Pakistan test fires three medium-range surface-to-surface missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads. Musharraf insists his country would not be the one to initiate war.
August 2002: Consolidates his power still further, giving himself the right to dismiss an elected parliament.
October 2002: Pakistan’s first general election since Musharraf seized power in 1999 results in a hung parliament.
November 2002: Mir Zafarullah Jamali becomes the first civilian prime minister since 1999. He is a member of a Musharraf-supporting party.
November 2003: Pakistan’s National Assembly meets for the first time since 1999.
December 2003: Musharraf promises to step down as head of the army by January 2005.
May 2004: Pakistan is readmitted to the Commonwealth.
December 2004: Musharraf announces he will stay on as head of the army.
August 2005: Pakistan tests its first nuclear-capable cruise missile.
March 2007: Musharraf suspends the chief justice, Iftakar Mohammed Chaudhry, triggering a wave of anger across the country and the first joint protests held by the parties of exiled former prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif.
October 2007: Signs a corruption amnesty, opening the way for Bhutto’s return and a possible power-sharing agreement. Within hours of Bhutto’s arrival back in the country, bombers attack a Bhutto rally in Karachi, killing more than 100 people.
November 2007: Declares a state of emergency, rounding up opposition leaders at gunpoint. In the same month, Musharraf quits as head of the army, becoming a civilian president.
December 15 2007: Lifts state of emergency and announces plans to go ahead with parliamentary elections scheduled for January 8.
December 27 2007: Benazir Bhutto is assassinated at an election rally in Rawalpindi.
January 2008: Elections postponed until February 18.
February 2008: The two main opposition parties gain a clear majority in the elections.
August 2008: The two main parties strike a deal to impeach Musharraf if parliament backs the move.
August 18 2008: Musharraf announces his resignation
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I think the lesson for us all who no doubt at one stage were Musharraf supporters including me is best captured in my post on the topic see it here - http://tinyurl.com/5towhb
Particularly true are the words in the post that said ‘ the lesson for us all is that so called good-intentioned khaki kings like Musharraf serve only as an enemy within, they must be resisted from day one and must be treated as an enemy of the state, period’
Food for thought indeed.
Feimnallah
Wasim
To Mr. Mujtaba,
I have done the reshearch for all these points listed below, I live in a middle eastern country and for a company that is related to financial news . This article was not written by me but was writted by a reporter. So why don’t you give me 30 points of what these two new leaders that you support have done for the country….Enjoy
Mirza Rohail Baig
An effective and successful manager manages his company with whatever resources he/she has, and manages to gear it towards an unprecedented growth and prosperity, utilizing all internal and external factors. Musharraf has proven himself to be the manager for Pakistan!
Multi-National Corporations (MNC’s) provide excellent job opportunities, bringing in the required capital, latest technology, developed human resources, management, quality and safety standards.
1. Dubai Ports World announced on 1 June 2006 that it will spend $10 billion to develop real estate, infrastructure and transport in Pakistan.
2. Emaar Properties announced on 31st May 2006 three real estates developments in the cities of Islamabad and Karachi. The projects, with a total investment of $2.4 billion, will include developing commercial and residential property.
3. Emaar Properties also signed an unprecedented $43 billion deal to develop two Island resorts – Bundal Island and Buddo Island – over the decade.
4. International Petroleum Investment Co., owned by the government of Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, has received approval from Pakistan’s government to build a $5 billion Oil refinery at Hub in Baluchistan. The refinery, which will be Pakistan’s biggest, will have the capacity to process 300,000 barrels of oil a day.
5. 2006: The government is all set to establish an ‘Oil city’ with an investment of $40 billion at Gwadar Port to make it the biggest crude and refined oil storage base in the region. The government has allotted 12,500 acres of land in Gwadar. The Chinese Petroleum Chamber would come up with $12.5 billion investment plan for the project.
6. Canadian Oil & Gas Company signed a $200 million project with Pakistan that would generate 50,000 direct jobs in Sindh. It will explore, develop, produce and commercialize Coal Bed Methane (CBM) in Pakistan up-to 70,000 barrels a day for about 20 years.
7. July 2006: The Government awarded three blocks in the country’s offshore Indus Delta to British Petroleum Pakistan. BP Pakistan (formerly known as Union Texas Pakistan) will explore gas blocks U, V and W, covering an area of 21,000 square km, for oil and gas reserves.
8. Dubai’s foreign investment in Pakistan’s capital markets recorded significant growth in 2006 and more than doubled to Dh1.278 billion ($351.5 million) by June 30th of this year. It stood at Dh554.9 million last year.
9. The KESC has awarded the contract for Phase-I of the 220 MW Power plant to METKA, EPC contractor, a Greek Company of international repute, whereas Phase-II for 565 MW is under process, it has been reliably learnt. The EPC cost of the project is around $186 million including approximately 11 million dollars for chiller equipment.
10. Sept 26: Am Power Company, a Kuwait-based company, intends to build 225MW combined cycle Power project located at the Sundar Industrial Estate at an estimated cost of $200 million.
11. The credit of building the Chashma-2 goes to the Musharraf Government. PM Shaukat Aziz launched work on the billion dollars 325-megawatt plant in Chashma, which is the second to be built at the site with Chinese help. The cost of Chashma-2 is around Rs 51 billion, which also includes Rs20.1 billion foreign exchange component.
12. In the much-awaited, but positive development, WAPDA has finalized a Chinese consortium, China Gezhouba (group) Co Ltd China and CMEC, China (CGGC-CMEC), for the construction of strategically the most important project: 969 MW Neelum-Jhelum Hydropower. Cost of Construction is above $1.8 billion.
13. French Renault is establishing a 40-million-euro assembling plant of Renault Logan cars in the country, with the production capacity of 15,000 automobiles per year. This project would attract 40 million euros’ investment and create 600 job opportunities.
14. The automobile industry in Pakistan has made remarkable progress during the last few years. Despite low indigenous base, it has attracted almost Rs100 billion investments. Rs 52 billion has come in direct manufacturing and Rs 35 billon in ancillary industry.
15. Pakistan Suzuki, a leading automobile company, has achieved exports worth $957 million during the last financial year 2005-06, which has been considered by the government as an encouraging sign.
16. The Motorcycle industry in the country is progressing as well since the manufacturing of motorcycles has touched the Rs.0.7 million mark in financial year 2005-06. Crankcase is manufactured mainly by only two companies but their production capacity is approx 6,000 sets per month.
17. Honda Atlas Cars held a Manufacturing Capacity Expansion ceremony of its auto plant. HACPL will increase annual production capacity will be doubled from the current 25,000 units to 50,000 units by the end of 2006. Total investment around Rs1.67 billion.
18. A Manchester (UK) firm called Drillcorer has just moved production of its drills to Pakistan. The result is that it can now sell them for £15,000 rather than the £65,000 it would have had to charge if they were produced in Britain.
19. 2005: Brunei government is financing the US$2.6 million training “Institute for Pakistan Foreign Service”. Under construction.
20. WASHINGTON: Pakistan ranked first among all developing world recipients in the value of Arms transfer agreements in 2006, concluding $5.1 billion in such agreements.
21. 2-12-07: Cement sales by Pakistani manufacturers to local and foreign buyers is expected to have reached 11.848 million tonnes during the first five months (July-November). Exports are expected to grow by 155% year-on-year to 2.531 million tonnes for the five-month period.
22. Pakistan’s Financial Sector is witnessing robust growth in Islamic banking. Two fully-fledged Islamic banks — one local and one foreign-based — have opened 23 branches recently. Bank Islami will be the 3rd Bank. The 4th Dubai Islamic Bank would open around 70 branches. Saudi Arabia would open the 5th Islamic Bank soon.
23. Takaful Pakistan Limited would soon commence operational activities in the country with an initial paid-up capital of Rs200 million and an authorized capital of Rs 300 million. Takaful is a system of Islamic insurance.
24. 14-6-07: Standard Chartered Bank of Pakistan (SCBP) has made a mega investment of Rs 30 billion to grow in a significant way in Pakistan.
25. Pakistan’s leading Edible Oil buyers are establishing 4 new refineries, officials in the industry said. Most of the refineries will be operational by the end of 2007 and they will double Pakistan’s CPO refining capacity of 2,025 tonnes per day.
26. 26-1-07: Canadian Wireless systems developer TenXc Wireless Inc. is partnering with Pakistani company Coherent Designs Pvt. to establish a joint development centre for wireless products in Pakistan’s capital. Global WiMAX market was worth $1.1 billion in 2006 and is expected to grow to $3.3 billion by 2009.
27. The Minister inaugurated ceremony of a software technology park. The high-tech IT park has been set up at Rawalpindi by a leading US IT company MTBC to start its business operations in Pakistan.
28. Capital Investment Overseas, an Abu Dhabi based company, will build a five-star hotel in Lahore, with an estimated investment of Rs20 billion (Dh1.25 billion). The construction of the 602 room hotel will be completed by the year 2011.
29. Saudi-Kuwaiti joint venture, Mid Roc Tussonia Ltd, will invest $3 billion to $4 billion in the next seven years in power generation, refining and real estate sectors in Pakistan. This was stated by the president of the Mid Roc Group, Sheikh Humoud Al-Sabah, at the launching of the joint venture here. Sabah said that his company would set up two wind power generation plants at Mirpur Sakro at a cost of $200 million. 2,500 acres of land has been acquired for this purpose. They will also establish a lube-based oil refinery at Port Qasim, over 500 acres of land, at a cost of $1.5 billion.
30. Tata Motors, India’s largest automobile firm, announced its entry in Pakistan through its subsidiary, Tata Daewoo Commercial Vehicle Co, with the commissioning of a new truck and bus assembly unit in Karachi. The plant has a capacity to produce 3,000 vehicles.
bumsqueak says:
> Is it possible that anti musharraf hysteria is primarily a result of reaction to rampant inflation, economic woes and people just seeking a “face” to blame.
If you look into the facts, you’d see that the Musharraf administration itself is responsible for this. It’s absurd to think that the ruler of a country wouldn’t be accountable for the state of affairs in his country.
> -not to get into a chicken and egg argument about which came first but our experiments in democracy are nothing to write home about either
Sorry, but dictatorship is a fundamentally flawed idea, and even if you don’t believe that, then Pakistan’s history shows how dictatorship rule has driven Pakistan rapidly into the ground far worse than any other periods of time, and that’s no co-incidence. A democracy, with no matter how many corrupt politicians, allows people to vote for someone else. A dictatorship does not (unless, like in Musharraf’s case, he is pressurized into resigning by his own colleagues).
> -perhaps you’ll be vindicated by Zardari and Nawaz this time around?:)
I don’t expect much better from them, and neither do I support either one of them. I supporter Bhutto until her death, but after that I have no faith in PPP or Zardari. Pakistan has no way to go but down, and that’s what’s most sad today!
Democracy Mubarak…Ab maza aae ga!
> I’m greatly depressed by the resignation news. How i wish it was all a dream but unfortunately it isn’t. With Musharraf out of the scene now, we can expect only the worst
Oh goodness! A dictator has resigned after the majority of the people of his country and the major political parties lost confidence in him - this nation is going into disaster! Like it hasn’t been driven into the ground by Musharraf enough…
After reading all the comments of Musharraf’s supporters, I made some observations.
First, they don’t even mention the controversies surrounding Musharraf’s rule! They talk of the free press, but they don’t talk of the abused TV reporters and journalists. They’re more interested in talking about how Musharraf made some admittedly much needed progress for woman rights, but sacked the judiciary and judges (guess what, if we don’t have a functioning law system, then what he did for women doesn’t mean an iota). In short, like Musharraf himself in his resignation speech, they believe in self-created delusions where Pakistan was some blooming nation of prosperity and flowing rivers of milk and honey. Go out in the streets of Pakistan and see what your beloved dictator has achieved! The truth is in front of you, time to face the facts and improve democracy in Pakistan just like Musharraf did by removing himself from the process.
Yasser Latif Hamdani, thanks for being one of the few sane and reasonable voices in here. Among the mindless Musharraf supporting drones, it is very hard to find credible argument.
Dictatorship has failed everywhere it has been tried. History can attest to that, and now we can add Musharraf’s name to the list. Even if we give credibility to the supporters of army rule, that democracy has not brought prosperity to Pakistan, and thus a dictatorial rule is necessary - we need only look at the most tumultuous years of Pakistan’s history to witness that those who brought Pakistan to ruin have been none other than army generals.
Like someone here said before, the ignorance on display here is astounding!
Faisal says:
> I would rather have been ruled by a democratic dictator
What exactly is a democratic dictator? That’s an oxymoron for you, right there!
another dictator bites the dust!