MULTAN: Pakistanis danced in the streets yesterday after beleaguered President Pervez Musharraf announced his resignation, with many ordinary people hoping his departure would bring improvement to their lives.
After ruling Pakistan single-handedly for nearly nine years, the former army chief and close ally of the United States announced his resignation in a televised address in the face of an impending impeachment by the ruling coalition government.
Lawyers, who have spearheaded an anti-Musharraf campaign since he tried to sack the chief justice last year, stormed out of courts in the southeastern city of Multan on hearing about Musharraf's resignation.
“It’s just like I’m celebrating my wedding,” said lawyer Malik Naveed, dancing among a crowd of about 400 colleagues.
Then army chief Musharraf was welcomed when he deposed an unpopular prime minister in a 1999 coup, ending a decade of fractious civilian rule. But his popularity began to evaporate last year when he tried to dismiss the chief justice, and later imposed a six-week stint of emergency rule, cracking down on the media and detaining thousands of political activists.
Jaffar Shah, a retired soldier in the northwestern city of Peshawar, said: “The root cause of all problems has gone.”
“I wish I could fire shots to show my joy but unfortunately I can't do that.” People in Karachi, the country's commercial capital, handed out sweets and danced in celebration.
“Thank God he's resigned. The country will do much better now. It’s a victory for the people,” said Mohammad Ilyas, 30.
Economic woes
Critics have complained the wrangling over Musharraf distracted the new government’s attention from worsening security and a deteriorating economy.
Inflation is at its highest in 30 years and fiscal and current account deficits are widening. The rupee has lost about a quarter of its value this year while stocks have plummeted about 50 percent from a record high set on April 21.
Some Pakistanis harbored what would appear to be unrealistic expectations for the post-Musharraf outlook: “Inflation is surely going to go down now,” said Rifaqat Shah, 65, a businessman in Karachi. But others were less optimistic about the resignation of a leader who promoted an investor-friendly environment and oversaw good growth and surging stocks until this year.
“The country was doing better economically but now the politicians won't be able to preserve the economy and things will get worse,” said another Karachi resident, Mariam Bibi.
Despite Musharraf's unpopularity, many Pakistanis are suspicious of the civilian politicians — a number of whom have returned to power — who were dogged by accusations of corruption and mismanagement when they ruled in the 1990s.
Some said they feared that with Musharraf gone, the coalition would be beset by infighting between parties that have traditionally been rivals.
“I’m not very hopeful. These politicians will again indulge in political bickering ... I don’t think they will bring down prices,’ said Mohammad Faisal, a civil servant in Multan.
The resignation of Musharraf removes a favorite bogeyman of militants both in and outside of Pakistan, but the government that forced him out is unlikely to change the policies that keep the jihadists fighting.
“It will take away a symbol of hatred but the essential issues don’t end with Musharraf,” said Shafqat Mahmood, a former government minister and political analyst.
The outgoing president — who abandoned Pakistan’s support of the Taleban regime in Afghanistan and sided with Washington after the Sept. 11 attacks — has been largely sidelined since February elections brought his foes to power.
But the new civilian government has done surprisingly little to change his policies in the militant-infested northwest regions bordering Afghanistan and wants to retain close ties with the US, supporting the international fight against extremism.
Mahmood said poverty, poor governance and anger at the US presence in Afghanistan combined to strengthen the pro-Taleban movement on both sides of the border. Although suicide bombings overall have dropped since last year in Pakistan, the insurgent threat is as pervasive as ever.
“It’s a virulent cancer that is eating into our society,” said defense analyst Ikram Sehgal.
The coalition government’s efforts to strike peace deals with militants are in tatters, and — like Musharraf — it is back to relying on the military to try to root out the extremists.
“I think they don’t have any option,” said Rasul Bakhsh Rais, a politics professor at Lahore’s University of Management Sciences. “The terrorists are not going to surrender. They have long-term objectives in the region.” Pakistani Taleban spokesman Maulvi Umar said yesterday that the Islamist movement was “happy” that Musharraf has resigned, but he called for an end to “his policies” — mainly the use of the military. “This is a positive change, but it is just the beginning,” Umar said, promising, “If the government ends these policies, the Taleban will stop their activities immediately.” Militant attacks in various parts of the northwest are reported almost daily, and pro-Taleban insurgents have at times staged executions of people they claim are US spies.
In recent weeks, a massive military operation against insurgents in Bajur, a tribal region, has killed nearly 500 people, the government says, and displaced more than 200,000.
Other operations, such as in Khyber tribal agency, have also sought to emphasize government authority, but they have only spurred militant promises of revenge.
Meanwhile, officials say militant attacks across the border in Afghanistan have surged because so many of the insurgents are finding refuge in Pakistan’s tribal regions.
What Musharraf’s departure could do is force the new government to focus on the Islamist threat, said analyst Talat Masood.
The ruling coalition’s main parties have been distracted since they took power over how to deal with Musharraf as well as how to restore dozens of judges he fired last year. Musharraf’s own future may depend on the militant threat against him. The outgoing president has already survived multiple assassination attempts and there is speculation that he may have to seek exile abroad for his own safety.
