Jason Burke was the first reporter to interview General Musharraf when he seized control in 1999 from one of the men who today threaten to impeach him. Now he reports on the critical changes transforming the nuclear-armed state as the pro-US strongman’s power ebbs away. And these changes may not be welcome to the West. From The Guardian:
Tomorrow morning two convoys of luxury four-wheel-drive vehicles will speed from the leafy western suburbs of Islamabad on to the newly widened dual carriageway through the centre of the Pakistani capital.
Barely braking for the police checkpoints, they will converge on the National Assembly. The two most powerful politicians in Pakistan – Nawaz Sharif, the head of the Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N), and Asif Ali Zardari, the husband and successor of assassinated Benazir Bhutto as leader of her Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) – will either be burying President Pervez Musharraf or praising him. If negotiations to secure an ‘honourable exit from power’ for the military strongman have been successful, it will be the latter: speeches disingenuously praising his contribution over nine years of rule to the Pakistani people. If not, it will be impeachment.
‘Musharraf’s days in power are numbered,’ Ayaz Amir, a PML-N MP, said yesterday. Makhtoum Shahabuddin, a former PPP minister and recently re-elected MP, agreed: ‘He is batting on a very, very sticky wicket.’
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