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.
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
I have been reading the news everywhere and find no mention of what will happen to him now… will he leave teh country? where? will ther be cases against him?
Does anyone know of any news on this. Please not your slogans and rants, just the reported news. Thank you.
I am not really happy about this but I think this was necessary. Things wont become better but had he stayed they would have become worse.
If he had stayed he would only have distracted from everything because his personal clash with the elected govt was getting in teh way of everyday government. So I am glad that he has stepped down. Good that he resigned instead of all of us having to go through the impeachment heartache.
Alas!Another patriotic Pakistani has been forced to step down just bcoz a couple of “self-rightous” people wanted to play power. Mr. Zardari seems to have forgotten that ZARDAAR means playing with monies and not in money. And the Miyan sahab seems to have forgotten that it was unfortunately OUR TAX MONIES WORTH OF BILLIONS OF RUPPES THAT WAS USED TO BUILD THE EVERFAMOUS SHARIFF MEDICAL AND EDUCATIONAL CITY.Its human psychology k ap kisi cheez ko bura kehte rehte hain n your mind ultimately accepts it as bad or good and this is what we as a nation are doing. I was listening to the city nazim of Karachi on the eve of 14 Aug at a local radio station with a couple of very ardent speakers on patriotism and their previous programmes too and so far what i have assessed is that we are a nation who forget the Lyrics of the Qaumi Tarana the day we walk out of our respective schools and we are a nation who refer to our country not as mera mulk or hamara Pakistan but as YEH JO MULK HAI OR IS MULK MEIN. I ask you all a very common and often repeated question what have you given to this country. Clean streets, did you save any water today. Did you go and plant a tree for tomorrow. What did you do. I have the right to ask you becoz at my meagre level I try to do all this. an let it be clear this was way before the City Nazim pledged I OWN KHI. I saw an honest true Pakistani in Mr Musharraf who trully wanted to do something for this sinking ship and we are a truly AHSAAN FARAMOSH nation becoz we forced a person out to let these tried and tested looteraas loot us even more and yet we never learn from our mistakes.
Well lets see what these so called true Pakistanis do now their apth has been cleared and now they have no excuse to doing anything.
i wish you all a Happy 62nd Independence and sincerely hope we emerge as nation now as its now or never
I wish he had left with honour and dignity last year instead of insisting on his reelection, letting Zardari and others get away with their corruption cases through the NRO and destroying the judiciary on Nov 3. His Nov 3 attack on the judiciary did not help him perpetuate his rule, but it (along with the NRO) has left Pakistan with the Zardari clan in power and a totally subserviant judiciary.
I still believe that when the current euphoria subsides, and when a few years have passed, people will come to evaluate his period more objectively and see him somewhat less harshly than the present national mood. However, it is hard to deny that some of his personal weeknesses, and his unwillingness to quit when the time had come has done Pakistan a lot of harm.
One other major mistake, that he will probably never realize, was to put Shaukat Aziz in charge of the economy. I believe Musharraf sincerely wanted to improve the economy, and he probably believes his government did fairly well in that department. Since he is not an economist himself, he had to put all his trust in the finance minister, and since he chose the wrong man, his government wasted the golden opportunity that came after 911.
Instead of putting us on a sustainable growth trajectory, Shaukat Aziz used the inflow of money after 911 to create a consumption boom. This inflated the growth rate for some time, but came at the expense of long-run sustainability. Instead of promoting genuine investment that creates new jobs, foreign investors were given overly attractive deals to buy existing businesses and the banking sector was allowed to fleece depositors through huge banking spreads (the difference between the interest charged by a bank from its borrowers and the interest paid by the bank to its depositors). Big sharks in the stock markets were given free reign to inflate the stock index instead of properly regulating the markets to curb speculation and market manipulation. As the trade deficit started rising in 2005, nothing was done to control it, and now, we have landed into a $20 b or so deficit in the last fiscal year. I believe, Musharraf really wanted the economy to be run well, but sadly, due to the bad choice of Shaukat Aziz, his period will go down as a wasted opportunity.
I feel sad, because Musharraf could have done a lot more for the country if he had exercised slightly better judgement in several areas. Compared to BB, Zardari or NS, he took several initiatives in different areas, ranging from devolution, police reforms, NAB and higher education to the opening up of the electronic media (which both BB and NS were clearly avoiding). But in most of these major initiatives, at some point, for one reason or another, serious mistakes and compromises were made. The way he came into power was without doubt wrong (the disastrous Kargil operation followed by the coup), and he also lacked democratic legitimacy. But still, there was a lot of potential, which went unrealized.
Many of his critics, who had a single point obsession of making him leave and letting BB and NS return without making any effort for strengthening institutions have also contributed to this loss of opportunity. It was only after march 9, that a genuinely pro-institution movement started, and by that time, Mush had reached a point when his further continuation was doing more harm than good.