President to be lame duck or jobless
* Analysts say Musharraf will have to make deals with parliament for survival
ISLAMABAD: Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf will become a powerless leader at best and could lose his job after his parliamentary supporters conceded defeat in elections, analysts said on Tuesday.y.
The Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q), which backed Musharraf for the past five and a half years, conceded defeat on Tuesday following parliamentary polls a day earlier.
Deal: After holding a firm grip on power for eight years, the former general and key US ally in the fight against Al Qaeda will have to make frantic deals with a hostile parliament that could in theory call for his impeachment, the analysts said.
Musharraf has become a lame duck president, said Hasan Askari, a political analyst teaching at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University in Washington, DC.
Survival: For him the most crucial issue will be his political survival rather than fighting the war against terrorism.
Askari said Musharraf will find it difficult to work with the opposition that wants to undo most of the steps taken by him after the suspension of the constitution in November under a state of emergency.
The presidents influence had already been eroded by his November resignation as army chief after months of political turmoil, a move that robbed him of his main source of power, Askari added.
Strategic Forecasting, private Washington-based analysts, called the election results a disastrous outcome for the presidents allies. It appears that Musharraf was no longer able to make use of the state machinery (especially the intelligence agencies) to rig the vote, they said.
Nawaz, whom Musharraf ousted in a 1999 coup, has been uncompromising in his calls for the man he calls dictator to step down. Benazirs Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) still mistrusts Musharraf after the death of its leader in a gun-and-suicide attack at a rally in Rawalpindi on December 27.
With neither party likely able to form a government on their own, the analysts said, Musharraf might try to split the PPP from Nawaz with the promise of the prime ministers post if they join with independent parliamentarians who are loyal to him (Musharraf).
President Musharraf would be under great pressure because his position has been greatly weakened, because its an indictment against his policy, Talat Masood, a former general who is now a defence and political analyst, told AFP.
The opposition could unite to get the two-thirds majority they need to seek Musharrafs ouster through impeachment, although analysts see this as unlikely because Musharraf retains the power to dissolve the government.
The situation is extremely troublesome for him. He may try to undermine the internal coherence of the opposition but it is such a landslide that he may find it difficult to stay at the helm of the affairs, Askari said.
Shafqat Mahmood, a political analyst, said any attempt at manipulating the opposition would fail. If Musharraf thinks that he can still survive by manipulating the PPP or a faction of the PPP to join him he is seriously mistaken.
Daily Times - Leading News Resource of Pakistan
SAME THING MUSH DID FOR US WE ARE LIKE KIDS WE WANT TO MESS WITH USA WE WANT TO FIGHT BUT HE TOLD US NO ITS NOT GOOD FOR US FIRST WE SHOULD GET STRONG. WE SHOULD BE TALL AND FEARFUL NATION THEN TAKE IT WHERE EVER WE WANT TO. BUT WE ARE LIKE NO WE DONT LIKE YOU MUSH WE HATE YOU. YOU ARE STUPID, A DICTATOR, WORST THING FOR US BECAUSE WE WANT TO DISTROY OURSELF AND YOU DON'T LET US. WE WANT TO BE LOOTED AGAIN BUT YOU DONT LET US, WE WANT TO BE RAPED BY THESE BASTERD CURRUPT POLITEITIONS BUT YOU STOP US. HOW DARE YOU GOT US OUT OF DEBT? HOW DARE YOU LET US STAND BY OUR OWN? !!!!!!!!!!!!!
