Exit Musharraf

Pakistan president Pervez Musharraf's resignation in the face of threat of impeachment by the coalition government of Pakistan People's Party (PPP) and Pakistan Muslim League-N should be seen as the appropriate gesture. Musharraf had no options left once the two leading parties joined hands against him and rather than do something rash, like dismiss the government, he astutely realised that the dice was loaded against him and took the only recourse left.

It could be that there are deals, compromises and backroom arrangements that he has worked out with the government. As of now, Musharraf has stepped down voluntarily, averting a lacerating political struggle. He is not the first man in uniform to do so. Field Marshal Ayub Khan quit under pressure from the populist Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, as did the infamous Yahya Khan after the Bangladesh debacle.

Despite the democratic trappings, Musharraf remains a man who interrupted democracy and tried to justify it. The circumstances of his taking over the reins of power were bizarre. It began with Nawaz Sharif’s irrational decision of not allowing the plane in which Musharraf was travelling back from Beijing to land in Pakistan.From then onwards began  his almost decade-long rule in a nation used to army rule. 

Musharraf was at once put under pressure and saved by the US attack on Afghanistan after the terrorist strikes of September 11 — the Bush administration saw in him the only possible player in Pakistan who could help it in the war against terror. That militant elements in Pakistan and Afghanistan only grew on Musharraf's watch shows that he was playing a double game. American pressure got him to grudgingly agree to allowing both Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto back into the country — the renewal of the democratic process has resulted in his ouster. 

History will judge Musharraf as a modern dictator, even a post-modern one — he did not behave like dictators usually do. Under him, the media remained largely free and civil society thrived much more than it had earlier. He was not an irreligious man but he had no patience with Islamic extremists. He was also cynical enough to use the extremists as a bargaining chip in his negotiations with India, but relations between the two countries actually improved. However, India will also remember him as the architect of the Kargil “war-like” situation.

Pakistan will now have to get used to life without the man who ruled them for nine years and the nation will look to its parties to provide the much-needed stability.