President of Pakistan - Pervez Musharraf's acknowledged yesterday that he is now undertaking the role of Presidnet in a caretaker capacity and this is to be welcomed. Even though this is mainly just a technicality as he has replaced with loyalists the uncooperative Supreme Court who will ultimately make the decision on the legality of his recently received second mandate, the fact that he still recognises this and his government has siad here that he is now acting in a caretaker capacity as President gives some hope for the future of democracy and the rule of law in Pakistan.
Musharraf is not one’s typical idea of a dictator. He seems to want the understanding and acceptance (and maybe the love) of the West for the course he feels he has been forced to take. He disarmingly appeared on Sky News a couple of days ago sating “The day when there is no turmoil in Pakistan, I will step down…I am not a dictator, I want a democracy”. Also with his recent autobiography - In the line of fire, he made numerous appearances on a number of American talk shows including the Tonight Show with Jon Stewart, seeming folksy and eager to please. Among the more interesting quotes from the autobiography are “a true leader will always be loved by his people; they will be prepared to follow him, not because of his rank or position but because of their rank and esteem for him”. He was also informed us that he had been told by a former top ranking Mr. Universe that “I had a most muscular physique” and also gave us the insight that “I prefer small dogs” (These quotes comes via a very insightful comment piece about the man by Steve Cole in the New Yorker magazine).
Yet the impression that's come across to me that perhaps he’s overcompensating for the fact that his mother didn’t hug him enough as a child is perhaps too facile. After all, the U.S. have given either $10 billion (Wall Street Journal on 9th November - Jay Solomon) or $11 billion depending on your source in aid since the events of 9/11, much of which has gone to the military probably for their continued support for the regime. Indeed so anxious was Musharraf to avoid the withdrawal of finding that he “called the chairmen of the Senate and House foreign-relations committees to explain his actions” and also “dispatched a top legal adviser to Washington and New York to meet with media and think thanks, and stress the potential dangers of cutting support for his government” (Wall Street Journal on 9th November - Jay Solomon).
Unfortunately, even though, as Seumas Milne states in the Guardian withdrawal of this aid would probably topple Musharraf and possibly restore democracy, the fact remains that he his now head of a volatile county and the last thing the U.S. desires is to introduce more instability. Questioning the he value of his continued rule is valid, however - Pakistan has gone from a putative bulkwark against jihadist terror as George W. had hoped, to a place where most of al-Qaida operatives are now trained in the largely uncontrolled mountain border area with Afghanistan.
Milne also notes that a human tragedy underlies all of this, including the fact that “a third of its 160 million people go hungry and 44% are living below the poverty line" and it is a place where "half the population is illiterate and barely one in two girls goes to school”. Very few people are gaining from this situation, perhaps the newly laundered whiter-than-white from her previous corruption links, Benazir Bhutto, perhas al-Quida but many millions in Pakistan again bear the brunt of political instability and mismanagement.
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