Crowds gathered in the streets, dancing to the frenzy of drumbeats, distributing sweets and firing gunshots in the air as Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf announced his resignation after ruling with absolute power for almost nine years.
But analysts fear the festivity might not last long because the governing coalition responsible for Musharraf’s ouster has mighty challenges in the coming days. If they fail, the public might turn against them too.
“Pakistanis will soon find out that Musharraf was not the root of all evils,” said Ikram Sehgal, a political commentator in Karachi.
The outgoing president has had little to say in government policies since his political backers were trounced in Feb. 18 elections, but the new civilian government has done little to halt the fast-sinking economy.
Food inflation stands at a record level of 32 percent, multiplying the miseries of tens of thousands of Pakistanis who earn around US$1 a day. The country is experiencing a severe energy shortage. In the scorching heat of summer, most parts of the country face six to 14 hours of power outage.
“They solely focused on their common enemy during the last six months and did not [address] the problems that require immediate attention. I hope they now address these issues,” Sehgal said.
The country’s main market, the Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE), has lost more than 40 percent of its volume over the last six months and the rupee has lost its value by 18 percent. Foreign investors have fled Pakistan for more stable states in the world, and forex reserves saw US$6 billion eroding, mainly due to the tensions between the coalition and Musharraf.
But even the ill-fated president’s resignation is far from bringing about political stability, at least in the longer term. The two major parties, left-wing Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), who have a long history of feuding and vendettas, might not agree on a number of issues, including the election of a new president.
Asif Ali Zardari, the husband of the late prime minister Benazir Bhutto, whose party has the largest number of seats in the parliament, has fancied for himself or at least for a party loyalist to sit in the president’s office, consolidating his party’s grip over power.
“Someone from the Pakistan People’s Party would be the next president of Pakistan but I don’t know who that would be,” his 19- year-old son and PPP’s cochairman, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, a student at Britain’s Oxford University, told reporters at Karachi airport soon after his arrival from Dubai.
But their traditional rival and PML-N’s chief Nawaz Sharif is unlikely to accept that. By collaborating with many of Musharraf’s political backers, who had defected from his party back in the early 2000s, he could change the numbers game in the parliament.
“The issue can trigger a dangerous power struggle of the sort that has always provided the military chiefs, including Musharraf, with a justification to intervene,” warned Rasool Bux Raees, a professor in the Lahore University of Management Sciences.
Both leaders were alleged to have embezzled billions of dollars when their parties ruled the country in turns in the 1990s.
“We hope they behave soberly this time and concentrate on the well-being of the poor people of this country, who deserve a better future,” Raees said.
Rising Islamic militancy in lawless tribal areas bordering Afghanistan as well in the settled areas of North-West Frontier Province is another challenge for which the new government has shown little competence.
Immediately after being sworn in, Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani initiated peace talks with the militants. The policy sharply brought down the number of suicide attacks, which killed some 4,000 people last year and early this year, but no the peace.
Last month, the policy was partly reversed and government forces launched three major offensives against insurgents in restive Swat valley and two districts of tribal region, which have been sanctuaries for al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters carrying out cross-border attacks inside Afghanistan.
These actions might have sent a sense of relief to Washington and other Western countries which had expressed serious concerns over talks with the militants, and also convinced them to dump Musharraf, their old ally in the international fight against terrorism.
However, the militants have sworn to strike back and keep the country uncertain about its security and stability.
“All these issues can be solved,” said Musharraf while announcing his resignation in a televised speech.
“I offered to share all my experience with [the government] to help address complicated issues it was confronting,” he said lamenting that his appeals “fell on deaf ears.”
“The coalition considered me a problem and not a solution,” he said.
Could Asia be on the verge of a new wave of nuclear proliferation? A look back at the early history of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which recently celebrated its 75th anniversary, illuminates some reasons for concern in the Indo-Pacific today. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin recently described NATO as “the most powerful and successful alliance in history,” but the organization’s early years were not without challenges. At its inception, the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty marked a sea change in American strategic thinking. The United States had been intent on withdrawing from Europe in the years following
My wife and I spent the week in the interior of Taiwan where Shuyuan spent her childhood. In that town there is a street that functions as an open farmer’s market. Walk along that street, as Shuyuan did yesterday, and it is next to impossible to come home empty-handed. Some mangoes that looked vaguely like others we had seen around here ended up on our table. Shuyuan told how she had bought them from a little old farmer woman from the countryside who said the mangoes were from a very old tree she had on her property. The big surprise
The issue of China’s overcapacity has drawn greater global attention recently, with US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen urging Beijing to address its excess production in key industries during her visit to China last week. Meanwhile in Brussels, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last week said that Europe must have a tough talk with China on its perceived overcapacity and unfair trade practices. The remarks by Yellen and Von der Leyen come as China’s economy is undergoing a painful transition. Beijing is trying to steer the world’s second-largest economy out of a COVID-19 slump, the property crisis and
As former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) wrapped up his visit to the People’s Republic of China, he received his share of attention. Certainly, the trip must be seen within the full context of Ma’s life, that is, his eight-year presidency, the Sunflower movement and his failed Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement, as well as his eight years as Taipei mayor with its posturing, accusations of money laundering, and ups and downs. Through all that, basic questions stand out: “What drives Ma? What is his end game?” Having observed and commented on Ma for decades, it is all ironically reminiscent of former US president Harry