When Musharraf sacked Nawaz Sharif back in 1999, I started referring to him as uncle Musharraf because at that time in history Pakistan needed someone like him. Two years down the line, things started improving in the economic sector. Then came September 11 and Pakistan was center of attention. Musharraf played the “Fight against terrorism” card to his own advantage, got rid of loans as an amnesty for supporting U.S and then brought in the best people in the business like Shaukat Aziz, a banker. KSE went through the roof, things started improving, media had more freedom then under any other democratically elected government in Pakistan and TV stations like GEO and ARY flourished… then… the camel decided to get into the tent. Big mistake!
He decided to mess with the constitution and started playing with courts, that’s when I knew he was intoxicated with power. Then he played rest of his cards but by this time he lost the support of the moderates in Pakistan because he was breaking laws now so he played his last card by imposing emergency. Here is what he achieved after imposing emergency:
1) Dismissed most Supreme Court justices after they refused to take an oath to abide by a provisional constitutional order.
2) Gave sweeping powers to police to arrest and detain people and suspended fundamental rights, such as freedom of speech and expression, and curtailed rights of assembly.
3) Transferred emergency powers to the presidency before stepping down as army chief.
4) Kept the central government, provincial governments and parliament in place but barred courts from issuing orders against himself, the prime minister or any authority designated by the president.
After all this was done, he stepped down as army chief as he knew he was definitely going to become the President. He once said that his uniform is like skin to him so it must hurt to be the civilian president. He wanted to be “one man show” but international pressure and maybe the internal turmoil made him do the un-thinkable.
Musharraf is going to lift emergency on December 16th, which is a promise and not something written in stone that watch out for that. What else can I say; I just lost an Uncle….
I’m nowhere near as informed as you on this, but that’s kinda funny how he started out as a breath of fresh air, but like you stated appears to have gotten power hungry and suspended the constitution for his own gain. At least he did give up his uniform
You wrote: “When Musharraf sacked Nawaz Sharif back in 1999, I started referring to him as uncle Musharraf because at that time in history Pakistan needed someone like him.”
I beg to disagree with you. Why Musharraf was needed at that time. A democratic government was sacked illegally by Musharraf. It was nothing but an entrance of a dictator and its dictatorial governance. You are living in USA and enjoying democracy there and we are feeling hammer of Mush. Democracy should never be disturbed by anyone specially by a military dictator like Mush. Those who supported Musharraf in 99 can only be described as very silly people.
I can give you why Musharraf did what he did and why I agree with him.
1) Nawaz Sharif tried to illegally use his powers to make sure that the plane musharraf was in not be allowed to land. Musharraf was the army chief at that time and Nawaz Sharif didn’t want him to step on his own soil and wished harm to him.
2) Nawaz Sharif started the Kargil debacle in which Musharraf was chief and then when the army was almost winning, Nawaz sharif suddenly ordered Musharraf to back out. Now we know that happened because Clinton requested that.
3) Nawaz Sharif was in the process of changing the powers and making constitution amendments so that a president wouldn’t have the power to sack a prime minister because he knew his time was coming as corruption was on the rise.
I think if you look back, history doesn’t treat Musharraf that badly… Musharraf supposedly re-invented freedom of media and the reason GEO and other channels flourished was because of him but then as I have mentioned before, he just derailed from what he was doing and now he is just playing dirty politics.
Brother, you seem to have a very little information about Pakistan’s politics and military intervention in Politics. That is understand as you are not living in Pakistan.
The points you raised have already been explained by many renowned and credible journalists of Pakistan. So i request you to go though them.
I just feel we Pakistanis do not give respect to democracy and civilian leaders. In 21st century we are welcoming a military dictator. We Pakistanis do not even know what a democracy is.
Nawaz and Benazir are 100 times better than Musharraf. Musharraf has destroyed every thing Pakistan had. Now Pakistan is in serious danger of losing its territory.
anyway, interesting blog you have
Thanks for the comment but once again… I disagree with the points you made.
Just because I am not living in Pakistan doesn’t mean I have no clue what is going on in Pakistan. I live in a democratic country and appreciate the free will this country offers me and I would love to see that in my home country which will always remain Pakistan no matter where I go.
You hate military, I understand that and blame them for the recent price increase of wheat also, even that is understandable but if you hate militiary because it removed the democratically elected Prime Minister, your hate has a flaw.
Musharraf was being replaced by Nawaz Sharif without proper channels, now that shouldn’t have happened because if we elected a PM democratically, even he should be willing to do things by majority vote. So that makes Nawaz Sharif better than Musharraf?
We can go on and on about this but what will you say after the elections? You will say it was rigged by Musharraf. So one day musharraf will go away, someone else will come to power and when that person holds election, if your party loses, you will say that the elections were rigged. In both cases, you will think you were cheated… that’s the problem with Pakistan.