Source: The Morning Brief

Author: Joseph Schuman

With Pervez Musharraf’s reelection now confirmed by the Supreme Court he composed and the Pakistani president back in Washington’s good graces, the question is whether the rest of Pakistan’s body politic wants to participate in the general’s version of democracy.

Much of the international community remains critical of Gen. Musharraf’s de facto martial law — which is still in effect — and skeptical about his latest promise to step down as head of the military and serve as an exclusively civilian leader, though his aides say that could happen in the coming days.

The British Commonwealth yesterday suspended Pakistan’s membership because Gen. Musharraf had ignored its deadline to lift emergency rule. That’s the second suspension in eight years; the first, lasting five years, followed the bloodless coup that brought him to power in 1999, the Guardian notes. The decision could deprive Pakistan of hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign investment and development funding, the Times of London adds. But the Commonwealth’s biggest stick is moral suasion, and Islamabad’s quick condemnation of the suspension today as “unreasonable and unjustified” suggests it won’t be a deciding factor in this case. More resonating, perhaps, was President Bush’s avowal this week that Gen. Musharraf is a believer in democracy and, as the Washington Post reports, “a man of his word.”

Gen. Musharraf’s reelection officially became legal yesterday when the high court “stacked” with loyal appointees, as the New York Times puts it, dismissed the last legal challenges over the nominal constitutional prohibition on presidents in uniform. That obstacle out of the way, a shedding of the uniform and end to the “state of emergency” would seem to be the milestone steps Gen. Musharraf must take ahead of parliamentary elections he has rescheduled for Jan. 8, and which couldn’t come early enough for his defenders in Washington. While the Bush administration criticized emergency rule from the start, Pakistani and U.S. officials tell The Wall Street Journal the general’s aides and advisors had used a series of meetings to warn American diplomats it was coming. One of Gen. Musharraf’s closest advisers adds that the resulting U.S. criticism was muted, “which some senior Pakistanis interpreted as a sign they could proceed,” the Journal reports. A U.S. official counters that the administration never gave Gen. Musharraf “a green light” and intensively tried to dissuade him.

In the wake of Gen. Musharraf’s trip this week to Saudi Arabia, Saudi King Abdullah is expected to meet today with ousted Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and give the go-ahead to the fervent Musharraf opponent to return home, the Journal reports. The idea would be for Mr. Sharif to return from exile and be allowed to stay in Pakistan — something that didn’t happen when he tried last September — like once-exiled rival opposition leader Benazir Bhutto. If Mr. Sharif is allowed back and assumes control of his party — half of which split away during his absence to back Gen. Musharraf — he and Ms. Bhutto will face the same quandary: Whether or not to campaign for parliamentary dominance and a prime ministership that would put them in power alongside a president they have sworn to oppose.

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Tags: Emergency, Musharraf, nawaz sharif, saudi arabia, the morning brief