PAKISTAN: Spokesman says President will resign as army chief
Updated
A spokesman for Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf has just announced the president will stand down as army chief after being re-election by the parliament next month. It is unlikely to offer much comfort to his critics, who maintain that the constitution prevents the election of a president in uniform.
YASMEEN: My understanding would be that it's partly in response to the growing tensions within Pakistan and it's taken the form of different petitions to the Supreme Court that a President who is serving as a Chief of Army Staff should not be elected as a president. But I think there might also be some relationship to the pressure that the President has been experiencing from outside countries like the United States, who are very keen to get the President to work out some arrangement with Benazir Bhutto so that the liberal outlook of the regime doesn't change. Another possibility is that President Musharraf may be realising that having extended his term as the Chief of Army Staff for as long as he has, has denied other army chiefs, possible army chiefs the position. And although there have been lots of promotions in the military, people who would have occupied this position, at least two of them by now have been denied the position. And it could be a reaction to a possible sense that not doing it might create some negativity from the military itself. So maybe the announcement is directed not just simply towards those who are openly critical but others who have reservations about these two positions being taken up currently by the President.
MCCARTHY: Through his spokesman the President is saying he is prepared to stand down as Army Chief, but only after he's re-elected. Why is that?
YASMEEN: Well first of all he has made it very clearly that he wants to be re-elected and know that for the next five years he will be the president. If he resigns from the position of Chief of Army Staff now then he really doesn't have a lot of power behind him. So given the history of military's role in Pakistani politics one could argue that he's trying to cover his bases at the moment and that's why he wants to be elected before he resigns from the military. But the real question is if others in the system would accept this choice, it's very well thought the Muslim League Quaid-e-Asam group that has been supporting the President to say that this is what his intentions are. And somehow indicated they think that he would proceed with these intentions. It's another thing to expect others to take it on face value, again given the turmoil that Pakistan has gone through in the last few years, and especially since early this year. There is a lot of anti-Musharraf feeling and also a lack of trust of what he says and then does. So you might see that even though he says that he would resign after being elected as a president, there might still be people who would say that just the fact that he would want to be elected as the president in army uniform would make them resign from the parliament so that his election really wouldn't be truly valid. So the picture despite what he's saying isn't just going to be clarified because he's come up with this idea and is communicating it through Mushahid Hussain, I think there are a lot more other factors that are going to make the situation even more muddy.
MCCARTHY: This issue has been the sticking point in his negotiations with Benazir Bhutto, and indeed she said yesterday that her party may join other opposition groups in resigning from parliament if he insists on the dual role when he stands for presidency. How significant that she's making this threat now when for so long she had refused to join that opposition alliance?
YASMEEN: Well when you look at what Benazir Bhutto says and the policies that she adopts you can't but feel that she's guided more by the need to come back to power whichever way than by the principle of democracy. So the fact that she's saying she might join the opposition in one way again it would reinforce the mistrust and even cynicism about her intentions among Pakistanis, because she hadn't really wanted to be with All Parties Democratic Movement and wanted to stay out and not say she'll join them would raise a question why now. So I would say it's significant to the extent that it really validates the position that some of us have had for some time that Benazir Bhutto would try every possible means to come back to power as the prime minister. But other than that I think even she herself now is a hostage to the political mix-up and confusion that is becoming a hallmark of Pakistani politics.
Presenter: Joanna McCarthy
Speakers: Associate Professor Samina Yasmeen, director of the Centre for Muslim States and Societies, University of Western Australia
