What will Musharraf do now?
That is the ultimate question on everybody’s mind. Certainly the unavoidable is about to happen.
With the ‘deal’ now in shambles and taliban now taunting musharraf, it appears musharraf is cornered. With events such as the pathetic Earthquake Relief Operations, Chief Justice sacking, Red Mosque blunder, Waziristan mayhem, Bugti Killing and now this section of Northern Bypass crumbling and a lot of blood on Musharrafs hands, times are testing.
From a citizen’s perspective, life has been tough here lately. We have suffered the worst days of our lives, in the horrible traffic jams of Karachi or without power with mercury levels touching 40+ C. Bad infrastructure is not only the worry, but corrupt government officials add to the misery.
So what are the prospects for Musharraf? Bright! Why?
The very reason being that he has incompetent opponents, who do not know how to run the country. Lets start with Benazir, her terms have seen widespread corrupt practices accounting for billions of dollars that largely came from “commisions” on business deals for Pakistan government. The most famous being the kickback on 32 Mirge Planes and the controversial thermal Independant Power Projects (we could have established hydro based projects which were sustainable and had low operating expense) the effects of which are seen to this day. During here tenure we saw lack of concrete economic policies to utilize the rich resource base of Pakistan.
Nawaz Sharif has been another thorn in Pakistan’s history. As usual he has been corrupt and inefficient. The much hyped “Karz utaro Mulk Sawaro” (Payoff Debt, Enervate the Country) called for the public to donate its money to help Pakistan pay-off its mounting debt. As usual our patriotic public gave loads of money which ended up paying for the decorated mansions of Raiwind (a place in Punjab) for Nawaz. Pakistan went through the worst economic crisis in his tenure as sanctions were imposed after we went Nuclear (This one glorious gift helped deflate India’s ever-growing ego). Kargil War added to the miseries, and eventually he was dethroned by Musharraf.
Musharraf siezed power in 1998 from Nawaz. A brilliant strategist or not, that I cannot conclude due to the lack of evidence. However, the experts believe that Kargil conflict “showed a shocking lack of strategy” on Musharraf’s part. Educated in Turkey, he has grown fond of Kemal Ataturk’s view of a secular nation. This is why we have been seeing a lot of “enlightened moderation” speeches lately. On the whole “our leader” likes to feed his ego. One good thing he did was revive the economy when it was in a state of neglect.
At the time Musharraf took over the government, Pakistan was regarded as a failed state by many international experts, as it was close to bankrupt. Total foreign exchange reserves were less than one month’s import. Investor confidence was at an all-time low. – Wikipeda
The bottomline
Pakistan was in an economic mess before 1998. We saw decline in FDI, high debt levels, high unemployment etc. And now we are growing at 7% per annum.
It is unlikely that either BB or Nawaz take charge due to a strong opposition by business community and particularly by foreign investors, that now act as a natural hedge for a new five-year term for Musharraf. It is due to the billions of dollars invested here, “altruistic” Uncle Sam do not want us to get rid of the dictator. The fear of another “radical Islamist” (after Iran) rattling nukes makes the west wet their pants. So the dictator is not going anywhere, strap on and enjoy the ride.
Posted by Ahmed Hassan 
Perpetual Emptiness 