Pakistan

Exit Musharraf

Pakistan’s president, Pervez Musharraf, jumps before he is pushed

UNPOPULAR, isolated, and facing the humiliation of impeachment, Pervez Musharraf resigned as president of Pakistan on Monday August 18th. In an emotional address, he accused his opponents of pursuing a “vendetta” against him. Even before the speech ended, they were dancing in the streets.

The former dictator’s demise had looked inevitable since August 7th, when the ruling coalition, led by the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), declared that it would impeach him. A list of Mr Musharraf’s alleged crimes had been compiled and would have been presented to parliament shortly after his address, if he had not resigned. The charge-sheet included Mr Musharraf’s first seizure of power in 1999 and his second last November, when he declared a state-of-emergency as a means to get himself re-elected president.

Mr Musharraf’s prosecution of the “war on terror”, including his decision to launch a bloody assault on a jihadist mosque in Islamabad last year, was another complaint against him. His pro-America policies have won nearly $10 billion for the army that he led until recently; but they have caused fury in Pakistan. They are seen, with some justification, as a big cause of a Taliban insurgency that has set north-west Pakistan aflame and fuelled terrorism across the country.

Impeachment would have been bitter for Mr Musharraf and the army. To ensure that it did not intervene on his behalf yet again, the government had implored Mr Musharraf to quit. Piling on the pressure, Pakistan’s four provincial assemblies last week passed resounding motions of no confidence in his presidency. He barely won a vote. The army, under General Ashfaq Kayani, gave no show of support for its former leader. Nor did America, which called his impending impeachment an “internal” matter. This had made Mr Musharraf’s resignation seem certain. Only his retirement plans were in doubt.

Mr Musharraf is also alleged to have been haggling with the government for immunity from prosecution—and all the trimmings of an honourable presidential retirement in Pakistan.

His accusers would rather he went into exile-which was, after all, the fate of both the PPP’s leader, Asif Zardari, and Nawaz Sharif, leader of the PPP’s main ally, the Pakistan Muslim League (N). It is not clear who will have his way, though Mr Musharraf is expected to remain in Pakistan for now. He suggested as much in his resignation speech: promising, with dewy eyes and a quivering chin, that he would remain “available to serve the country in any capacity”.

His opponents will not dance for long. The government has many troubles to address, including the ongoing insurgency and mounting economic troubles. Further, its decision to impeach Mr Musharraf was less a sign of strength than of its fundamental division. Mr Nawaz, who was toppled and convicted of crimes by Mr Musharraf, had insisted upon his removal. Mr Zardari was more reluctant: rightly seeing that this would be of primary benefit to Mr Nawaz, who is struggling to overturn a ban on standing for election, imposed because of his criminal record. And yet, if Mr Musharraf had stayed, Mr Nawaz would almost certainly have withdrawn his party from the government. To avoid this, and also to appease his own increasingly sceptical supporters, Mr Zardari gave Mr Sharif his way. Yet their co-operation remains supremely untrusting and liable to collapse.

Mr Musharraf’s exit may thus herald even more instability. Yet it is something of a success for Pakistan’s ravaged democracy: raising hopes that, sooner or later, the country may have a representative government able to bring the army to heel. As long as Mr Musharraf remained in office he remained a symbol of the army takeovers that have blighted Pakistan.

Not that he recognised this. To the end Mr Musharraf considered himself as a manifestation of the “essence of democracy”. He referred to this elusive concept in his resignation speech: claiming credit for promoting women’s rights, local governments and other equitable things. And so he did, sometimes with great success. But the fact remained that Mr Musharraf had never won office in an unrigged election. And he had long been unpopular. That he has now been slung out, by the first freely elected government he has permitted on his watch, was an example of actual democracy.