Posts Tagged ‘Pervez Musharraf’
Pervez Musharraf’s Sorta Graceful Exit?
Pervez Musharraf is like Pakistan’s Charlie Brown. Try as he did, he just couldn’t kick that damned ball. And not because Lucy would pull it away. It was mostly because he’s an idiot. Well, no. That’s unfair; he was a military leader trying to make the best of a rotten situation wherein the only viable ministerial candidates were crooks and cons. Still he’s not exactly known for being subtle or adept.
His latest blunder is widely known. He was re-elected to the presidency in October 2007 as a military leader. Immediately after his victory, opponents sought to determine the validity of his victory, and whether the Pakistani constitution allowed for a military leader to retain control. Before the supreme court could decide the issue, he fired the judges, arrested the chief justice, and suspended the constitution under the guise of an imaginary national emergency. Didn’t really do wonders for his legacy.
Yesterday he and his party instilled a little faith in me about the future of a viable democracy in Pakistan. Prior to Sunday’s elections Musharraf’s own attorney general fueled speculation that Musharraf’s party, the PML-Q would try to rig the contest in a last ditch effort to stay in power. That’s some bad PR. But it wasn’t to be. It would seem that Pakistan actually held the transparent election that was promised. What’s more is that Musharraf hasn’t contested the results; he went into this election covered in mud, lost the election in a bad sort of way, but is coming out of it a little cleaner than he went in. Of course, he knew that if he’d toyed with the system he’d have riots on his hands.
Musharraf could have screwed this up real bad; he didn’t really win any points with the U.S. over the way he handled his so-called state emergency, and so here we see him cave to international pressure [see: American tax dollars] and the votes of his own people. Musharraf will remain onboard as president, playing second banana to the soon to be chosen Prime Minister, and if he plays his cards right, he might go down in history as a reasonably decent guy. For not rigging the elections. And for not crying about after he lost. Both of which he shouldn’t be doing anyway. Well, whaddya gonna do.
Photo by David Shapinsky used under a Creative Commons license.
