Adil Najam
UPDATE: Gen. Musharraf has just announced his resignantion during a nationally televised address. Read more here.
ORIGINAL POST:
Gen. Pervez Musharraf is slated to the address the nation in a televised address at 1PM PST today (Monday, August 18, 2008). Leading newspapers, such as The News and Dawn, are reporting that he is likely to announce his resignation and TV News channels are doing the same; indeed some have started running film summaries of his tenure as President as if his departure is already a done deal.
It may well be so. But given that this is Pakistan and this is Gen. Pervez Musharraf, one must never rule out the likelihood of surprises.
According to Dawn:
President Pervez Musharraf is to address the nation on Monday afternoon, his spokesman told AFP, while dismissing rumours that he had resigned to avoid impeachment. “The president will address the nation at 01:00pm (0700 GMT),†said retired Major General Rashid Qureshi, the chief presidential spokesman. Asked about local television reports that Musharraf had already resigned in the face of attempts by the governing coalition to impeach him, the spokesman replied, “It is all nonsense.†Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said it appeared that Musharraf had “seen the writing on the wall†but did not say if he knew what the president was planning to announce. “He is a wise man, he is a very experienced man and he has seen the writing on the wall,†Qureshi told Dawn News television when asked if he had confirmation that Musharraf had resigned. “He has seen the sentiments of not just the elected representatives, but various institutions… who all asked him to move in a particular way and do not destabilize things here,†he said. Pakistan People’s Party spokesman Farhatullah Babar said: “His political fate has been sealed. Whatever he says doesn’t matter.â€
[Strong] speculation is that Gen. Musharraf will use this speech to resign from the office of President, that a ‘deal’ has already been reached – which includes three elements: (a) that he resigns and no formal impeachment is carried out, (b) that he is given a broad amnesty against legal action against him, and (c) he is provided some form of ‘safe passage.’
My own sense is that if he does make the planned speech he will use it to describe, defend and detail what he considers to be the “achievements” of his tenure as President. While a formal “charge sheet” against him may never be tabled in Parliament, he will use this speech to answer the charges that have been and are being made against him. Expect, then, a speech that lists what he things he has achieved and responds to the lists of what his distractors say he has failed to do. This he will certainly do.
At the end of all this (a) he could say that although he has done his very best and beyond, in the interest of the country he will leave the office of the President so that the opposition to his person does not impede national progress; or (b) he could say that since he is proud of what he has achieved he will, like a good commando, fight to the very end because that is what is in the interest of the country. No matter which course he chooses, this will be one of the most important (if not the most important) speech of his life.
Given the way things stand right now it is more likely than not that he will take something akin to the first course. But even if he does not, it is quite clear that he is on his way out. If not today, then soon. If not through impeachment, then through resignation.
The question uppermost on most Pakistani minds is no longer whether Gen. Pervez Musharraf is on his way out. It is, what will happen to Pakistan after he leaves? Will everything become perfectly good once he is gone? Will things become not perfect but better? Will things becomes even worse? What do you think?
Mr. Bilawal bhutto zardari is on the screen the very next when a Musharraf left his seat. A great symbolic sceen to be seen at the Pakistani politcial stage! A middle working class back ground leader has gone and here comes a Kid who’s a “leader” because his mother was primeminsiter and his mother was a prime minister because her father sate on the seat of primeminister and so and so forth..After five months the national resources of this poor nation has been burnt ruthlessly on silly issues. Zardari the Theive of Sindh and Shareef the meat eater of Lahore site in laxury sofas with pretenious smiles on their faces ..this is what we have seen once the “Demo- cracy ” is back.
THANKS Musharraf and Allah Bless You!
> Musharraf certainly made major errors in the last year
He didn’t make errors! This is what you get from having a dictator – a man who is corrupted by power.
> And for the record, Musharraf did free the media, he did however, in poor judgement, try to restrain it last year,
So he freed the media until it covered his crimes. How democratic is that? So you are saying that Musharraf himself is the media’s best friend and worst enemy.
I guess that explains how he was a “democratic dictator.”
Yes we need to learn from this example that army men only look for their own gains. Where is the money America gave Musharraf? He has looted from this nation that Nawaz or PPP – face the facts, no one is a saint, but Musharraf is the worst.
I am apalled at the intelligence of those who think Musharraf’s resignation is something of a disaster, particularly those living in the US. It seems the US media has successeded in pulling the woll over their eyes. Here is a man who is responsible for extra-judicial abductions of more than 400 hundred Pakistanis in a bid to feed the US war on terror. Most of these unfortunate souls had nothing to do with terrorism. Here is man who establiahed a party of crooks and put it in the saddle. Here is a man who has patronised linguistic and ethnic violence in Karachi. Here is man who bombed his own citizens and killed large number of innocent people in order to placate the American hunger for more violence in the war on terror. here is a man who miamed the constitution more than once, who maligned the army, destroyed national institutions and introduced sham democracy. He was not a strong man, he was a despot, a dictator. No matter how corrupt and ravenous the zardari and sharif lot are, they are better than an army dictator.
Ashamed of the Pakistani people or may be not this will teach them a lesson when they see what its like to be without a powerful man in charge of Pakistan and may be once they will know who meant good for them and who’s the devil inside !
I WILL ALWAYS BE A MUSHARRAF SUPPORTER !
Finally with musharaf’s resignation the vultures seem soaring. Those under illusion that Musharaf could have been impeached or that he left because of the fear of impeachment, let me make it clear, Impeachment is no light matter. We saw daily photographs in the press, and shots on our television screens, of the smug powers that be and who were in charge of drawing up the