Will Musharraf keep his word?
Soon we’ll see if Musharraf is a man of his word
The President of Pakistan has promised true democracy
When their TV screens suddenly went fuzzy on Saturday afternoon, most Pakistanis felt they had seen it all before. Their country has, after all, spent 33 of its 60 years under military rule. The troops surrounding the TV and radio stations, the phone networks down, the round-up of opponents, the concertina wire across Constitution Avenue blocking off the Presidency, Parliament and Supreme Court . . . all these have been a periodic feature of Pakistan’s politics.
But this time the army chief imposing what amounted to martial law was himself already the President. ‘General Musharraf now has the dubious distinction of being the only man in Pakistan’s history to have suspended the Constitution twice,’ said Husain Haqqani, who has managed to be at various times an adviser to the military, and rival party leaders and former prime ministers Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto.
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sumant rawat
November 14th, 2007 3:53amI agree with the previous comment but have a slightly different take.Pakistan has a divide that its populace brushes under the rug and those unfamiliar with the subcontinent cannot see.It is the divide between the inherently tribal,xenophobic and medieval Pashtun mindset and the more liberal mindset with roots in the pagan culture of the subcontinent.The most obvious sign is that 60 years after independence the areas that are predominantly Pashtun are the 'Northwest Frontier Province and Federally Administered Tribal Area' not Pakhtunistan.Among the many reasons for the failure of democracy to take root is the cultural divide between the Pashtuns and non Pashtuns.The Taliban is merely a name the Pashtuns have adopted to militantly pursue what they have since the days Ahmad Shah Abdali an escape from the relentless change imposed by the outside world.
Geoff
November 18th, 2007 2:56pmMusharraf is Pakistans only hope. Bhutto et al will destroy any hope of democracy in their rush for money and islamic control. Most Pakistanis are quietly staying out of this and getting on with their lives - much improved since the military took charge. All of the politicians and media in the UK exercising their adolescent student views of what democracy can be in those kind of countries need to wake up before they hand the nuclear bombs over to the Pashtuns.
Jay Wilson
November 30th, 2007 8:41amI have to wonder where Christina Lamb gets her 'inside' information and suspect that it is from the Bhutto camp. Of course she neglects to mention that the former Supreme Court handed the Red Mosque right back to the family of its former extremist mullahs. Geoff and Sumant have some useful things to say in the other comments.