Musharraf is President, whether one likes it or not

[Neo]

Musharraf is President, whether one likes it or not​

After the Supreme Court refused to deliver a clear verdict on the opposition’s petition asking for a stay, the presidential election has resulted in an “unofficial” victory for President General Pervez Musharraf. His tenure is to end on November 15. He had told the Court earlier that he would step down as army chief after being re-elected on November 6 and before being sworn in as president for another five years. The Court gave “half-victory” to the opposition, staying only the official announcement of the result of the presidential election till October 17, when the case against the re-election of President Musharraf by the same assemblies would be decided on merit.

Had a clear verdict been issued, the government was ready to take care of any disruption arising out of the APDM and lawyers’ reaction to the election. But now that an inconclusive opinion has been handed down, violence raised its ugly head in Peshawar, where the lawyers, having despaired of the JUI component of the MMA majority, have gone out and attacked the “law-enforcement authorities”, leading to the usual counter-violence from the police. The crisis in the Peshawar assembly is not easy to understand for emotionally aroused partisans of the cause against President Musharraf. The Jamaat-e Islami part of the assembly has resigned while the JUI part of it has refused to dissolve it. The 124-seat assembly has taken part in the presidential election. It is supposed to send 65 votes — like all provincial assemblies — into the electoral college pool according to the presentational mathematics. Thirty-four votes have gone in favour of the president.

President Musharraf has also promulgated the National Reconciliation Ordinance — as it were, “over the dead body” of the PMLQ leaders — and made sure that the legitimacy of the process is protected through the “non-resignation” of the PPP members. In the 168-member Sindh assembly, the PPP had the largest chunk of votes, 67. Although its leader Makhdoom Amin Fahim was in the presidential race, the party decided not to vote, resembling the action of the MMA of backing the candidature of Justice (Retd) Wajihuddin but then resigning and not voting for him. The Sindh assembly has given its 36 votes to President Musharraf. The 65-member Balochistan assembly has likewise given him 33 votes — as against 28 in 2002 — while the opposition has resigned.

The PMLQ-dominated Punjab assembly celebrated after casting the winning vote for President Musharraf. With 194 seats in a 297-member assembly, the followers of Chief Minister Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi came out raising victory slogans as Lahore’s lawyers pushed against the police cordon to register their protest. An easy “innings” was observed also in the 342-seat National Assembly where the opposition was absent and the PPP did not vote. Only in the Senate was the opposition vote intact with the option of abstention. So President Musharraf has done swimmingly.

The “half victory” for the opposition at the Supreme Court was also a “half victory” for the government. This was not altogether a benign outcome. There were signals of “disagreement” of a factional sort among the bench that heard the first petition against President Musharraf and found it wanting on grounds of maintainability. In an extraordinary and unprecedented un-legal statement, one senior judge who had dissented from the majority and took the view of “non-maintainability” went down to Karachi and talked of “conscience” before proceeding abroad on leave. This clearly referred, not to any point of law, but to the “moral” quality of the individual judges of the bench. In the 1990s, the honourable court had given clear signs of bitter factionalism among its judges, a fact substantiated in the publications that issued later from the pens of the judges involved.

The opposition was apprehensive of the “mood” of the new 10-member bench hearing the case on merits. Some members of the opposition alliance APDM openly spoke of the “expected” verdict against them. There was some justification for this pessimism. The first bench had listened to substantive arguments for days before delivering an opinion on “maintainability” — which it could have issued in a short order much earlier. But now that the court has once again abstained from making up its mind on merits, both sides of the cause are justified in being open to misgivings, especially as at least one judge has talked about “conscience” in public.

Although the government lawyers claimed victory — and despite rumours of myriad conspiracies — the pro-Musharraf elements were on tenterhooks about the see-saw of opinion among the bench that now contained only four judges that had previously found for President Musharraf without being assailed by doubts. What if the verdict is against President Musharraf seeking re-election from the same assemblies the second time? The point is greatly obscured by the emotional pressure of the popular division on the subject in the country and the violence-prone campaign launched by the opposition. It now remains to be seen whether the Supreme Court can find a solution that puts an end the civil strife rather than precipitating another crisis. Until then, we can conclude that a process has taken place and President Musharraf is President, whether anyone likes it or not. *

Daily Times - Leading News Resource of Pakistan

 

[Neo]

An end to military rule?​

By Ahmad Faruqui

Musharraf proudly admits to having been a prankster in college who pioneered the use of time bombs hidden in garbage canisters. Ultimately, he confessed to save the warden’s job. To his surprise, the principal let him off the hook after a verbal reprimand. He says this episode taught him the value of honesty

Is General Pervez Musharraf finally going to morph into a civilian president? If you believe his most recent pronouncements, this time it is for real. Pakistan, he says, is ready for a transition to “full” democracy and he has given his assurance in writing.

But did he not promise to doff his uniform back in December 2004? That, he now says, was a promise meant to be broken because how else could the nation have dealt with natural calamities except with a president in uniform?

So we don’t know whether this is really the end or just the beginning of the end. As the Americans say, “It ain’t over till it’s over”.

In many ways, the general’s dictatorship has been the wiliest in history. When he seized power, he figured it was best to dispense with the overt martial recipe that Generals Ayub, Yahya and Zia had dispensed. In the Internet Age, he preferred virtual martial law.

While continuing as army chief, he styled himself the Chief Executive (as in CEO) of Pakistan and committed himself to “real” democracy. After 9/11, he added two words to his manifesto: “enlightened moderation.”

During his eight years, he gave Pakistan a democratic façade but kept it within the tight grip of the military. Just a few weeks ago, he brazenly told the Supreme Court that he would continue as army chief if he were not re-elected. This came on the heels of Nawaz Sharif’s deportation, which ran contrary to an earlier Supreme Court ruling. Protestors were arrested by the thousands.

The wave of political arrests continued unchecked because his hand-picked prime minister considered them to be “preventive” measures that were necessary to “maintain a peaceful atmosphere”.

Has Musharraf really changed his mind? To have any chance of answering this question we need to find a window into his mind. Since no biographies have been published, we turn to his autobiography, “In the Line of Fire”. In it, Musharraf tells us, “History judges leaders by results. Let my results do the talking.”

Musharraf proudly admits to having been a prankster in college who pioneered the use of time bombs hidden in garbage canisters. Ultimately, he confessed to save the warden’s job. To his surprise, the principal let him off the hook after a verbal reprimand. He says this episode taught him the value of honesty.

As the following examples suggest, it is not clear what he learned:

* He says that the armed forces have never let the nation down. So who was at the bridge when East Pakistan was lost? Was it not the army that failed to acquire Kashmir?
* He says Zia injected religious extremism into the body politic. But could Zia have done this without the full cooperation of the army?
* He champions women’s rights. But after the Mukhtaran Mai episode, he told the Washington Post that women in Pakistan invite rape so they can be paid a million dollars and immigrate to Canada. Afterwards, he denied the comments. But whose voice do we hear on the paper’s website?
* He says that Pakistan is winning the war against the terrorists. Yet the Lal Masjid episode occurred just a few months ago, bringing in its wake several suicide bombings. The Frontier continues to lurch toward extremism, the draconian Blasphemy Law is still on the books, the Taliban are surging in Afghanistan and Osama bin Laden, a man whom Musharraf had said was dead a while back, is very much alive. Otherwise, who is spreading terror by video?
* Musharraf maintains that the nuclear proliferation scandal associated with AQ Khan was “a one-man act and that neither the government of Pakistan nor the army was involved.” Can an army that cannot guard the nation’s nuclear assets be expected to guard the nation’s borders?
* He continues to talk of how, while wearing the uniform, he has brought real democracy. He asks for time to “consolidate our democracy and ensure the supremacy of the constitution”. But then why does he say, “The issue of democracy is a recent, post–Cold War obsession of the West; and unfortunately this obsession clouds its vision”?
* He has essentially forced the assemblies whose terms are expiring to re-elect him so that his efforts will “not go to waste”. Does this not mean that he will rule for life?
* He blames prior military rulers for wanting to perpetuate their rule. By indicting them, does he not censure himself?
* Right after 9/11, Musharraf says that the US threatened to bomb Pakistan back to the Stone Age. He war-gamed a conflict with the US and concluded that Pakistan would lose. Duh! And then he goes on to say that “Richard Armitage’s undiplomatic language, regrettable as it was, had nothing to do with my decision [to side with the US]. The benefits of supporting the United States were many. First, we would be able to eliminate extremism form our society and flush out the foreign terrorists in our midst.” Six years later, why has this not occurred?
* He states that the “Supreme Court found that my dismissal [by Nawaz Sharif] was indeed illegal and unconstitutional.” Then why did he not let Sharif into the country and honour the Court’s injunction?
* He believes he is a democratically elected leader and not one who rules through martial law because: “First, whenever the army gets involved with martial law, it gets distracted from its vital military duties. Military training and operational readiness suffer. Second, when we superimpose martial law and place the military over the civilian government, the latter ceases functioning.” Then why was it necessary to wear the uniform for eight years?

Musharraf cites the famous quatrain of Omar Khayyam:

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.

In it, he sees his destiny to govern. But he forgets that Khayyam’s wisdom applies to rulers who are past their zenith. Henry Longfellow’s poem about Harun al-Rashid is more direct:

Where are the kings, and where the rest Of those who once the world possessed?
They’re gone with all their pomp and show, They’re gone the way that thou shalt go.

Describing Indian Prime Minister Vajpayee’s travails at the failed Agra Summit in July 2001, Musharraf writes, “There is the man and there is the moment. When man and moment meet, history is made.” With great eloquence and much prescience, the general seems to have anticipated his predicament in October 2007.

Ahmad Faruqui, an American economist, is the author of “Rethinking the National Security of Pakistan,” Ashgate Publishing, UK

Daily Times - Leading News Resource of Pakistan

 

[x_man]

You are so right.

America is playing with Pakistan, whether one likes it or not
Pakistan has become a laughing stock in the world, whether one likes it or not
Benazir is going to be our next Prime Minister, whether one likes it or not
Theres too much mess in this country, whether one likes it or not
Islam has been disgraced in this, whether one likes it or not
Theres going to be more political chaos in Pakistan, whether one likes it or not
Things are too uncertain, whether one likes it or not

And Yes..............amid all this

Musharraf is President, whether one likes it or not

 

[x_man]

You are so right.

America is playing with Pakistan, whether one likes it or not
Pakistan has become a laughing stock in the world, whether one likes it or not
Benazir is going to be our next Prime Minister, whether one likes it or not
Theres too much mess in this country, whether one likes it or not
Islam has been disgraced in this, whether one likes it or not
Theres going to be more political chaos in Pakistan, whether one likes it or not
Things are too uncertain, whether one likes it or not

And Yes..............amid all this

Musharraf is President, whether one likes it or not

 

[niaz]

You are so right.

America is playing with Pakistan, whether one likes it or not
Pakistan has become a laughing stock in the world, whether one likes it or not
Benazir is going to be our next Prime Minister, whether one likes it or not
Theres too much mess in this country, whether one likes it or not
Islam has been disgraced in this, whether one likes it or not
Theres going to be more political chaos in Pakistan, whether one likes it or not
Things are too uncertain, whether one likes it or not

And Yes..............amid all this

Musharraf is President, whether one likes it or not

With due respect to your views Hon Sir, what is this with the Pakistanis that any thing that does not suit them, they bring Islam in it.

Is Musharraf going to stop any one fron praying, fasting, reading Quran or going to Hajj or any other duties necessary for a muslim ??

Do you think the BB becoming Prime Minister third time will cause moral turpitude??

Pray explain how is Islam being disgraced.?? If you imply that by following the US Islam is being disgraced, KSA is one of the biggest supporter of the US policies, you don't comment on that but cry out when Musharraf is re-elected.

Goog God!, Do you believe that election is a reason for 'Disgrace in Islam'??

 

[danishsaleem]

Salam to all,


Please read what the BBC is saying about the Presidential Elections,


According to BBC , 170 Million Rupees were spent on different advertisments on different TV channels, that compaign consist of 7 Documentries, and millions were also spent on Full and half page editions in all News Papers.



Danish saleem
Civilian rule is the future of Pakistan