What for days looked inevitable has happened. The general had clearly overstayed his welcome, like his predecessors. That he left with some, even if threadbare, dignity must now be thanked as the saving grace in the whole sordid episode. It could have been messier.

Pervez Musharraf’s has been a reign of error from the word go, as it were. It started with high drama in the skies and ended with a very reluctant, dragging drop scene under the media’s glare. When he was put in office, in absentia, by his faithful lieutenants in khaki, he was received surprisingly well by the people. He could have banished Sharif, as he did, held elections and led his forces back to the barracks in a very honorable way. Then, over eight years later and despite the political circus he presided over, he had another chance to step down with much more dignity on Feb 18 after the people had spoken once again, this time against him. But that was not to be.
There was an uncanny contrast between the speech he made in Oct 1999 and the last one on Monday. The only constant all these years that Musharraf stuck to was his penchant to hog the limelight. He was the least camera-shy of leaders, and predictable only in his unpredictability.
The long list of achievements he enumerated as his last hurrah, not exactly in order of importance, sounded like it was a shower of all that was good and prosperous that came and went. The khuda hafiz he bade betrayed the adieu of a defeated man. It’s a shame that despite his achievements as a once popular leader and the face the world had come to know Pakistan by he should have been his own undoing. The man was never the evil he had come to be portrayed as by his opponents, especially in his last year in office.
Musharraf’s unraveling lay in his own actions which did not always match the words he pledged. A fair accountability regime that he promised in 1999 was never put in place. The transition to democracy overseen by him was a manipulated affair. The promising devolution plan was made unworkable by subjecting it to the cronies he installed in the provincial administrations. While the ‘enlightened moderation’ policy saw some of the laws repugnant to women being amended to the latter’s benefit, it was also blemished by the scandalous handling of rape cases by the president himself.
The last government and parliament under Musharraf had little credibility and even less power to think and legislate without a nod from the presidency. While action was pledged against growing extremism in parts of Fata, the Lal Masjid monster was allowed to spread its tentacles in the capital itself. It was finally taken on with brute force, which needn’t have been the case if not only the declared intent but also the will to arrest extremism was put to practice. The same can be said about menaces like the Masood Azhars, the Sufi Mohammads, the Baitullah Mehsuds, and many banned but alive and kicking sectarian outfits.
Where the freedom the media came to enjoy under Musharraf’s presidency was praised, it was also the subsequent gagging of the somewhat infantile electronic media organs that came in for public censure. The way the judicial crisis was created out of the blue and then clumsily handled by the presidency also left the nation shocked. The key people and the parties the president patronized brought more than a fair share of the damage he ended up doing to his reputation.
The ill-advised chase unto death of Nawab Akbar Bugti in Balochistan, the Chaudhries’ crackdown against dissenting civil society members in Punjab and the May 12 mayhem in Karachi, all of which Musharraf publicly praised, were steps that led to his growing isolation.
The so-called reconciliation process the president started with the late Benazir Bhutto also backfired when the lady, after staging her mammoth but bloody welcome home from self-imposed exile, complained that all was not above board with the general. To the public as spectator, her contention that she was made to feel insecure was borne out by her tragic fate.
What followed the presidential action of Nov 3 last year was sheer madness. Musharraf’s belated doffing of his military uniform on Nov 28 was seen as a concession that came as too little, too late. By the time it happened, only Bhutto was able to claim the credit for forcing Musharraf to do what he had actually pledged and fulfilled. The subsequent posturing of the presidency in the aftermath of Bhutto’s killing, the destruction of evidence at the venue and allegations by her party colored the public mood until Feb 18.
By fixing blame on the president for everything, from bad law and order to insurgencies in Balochistan and the northwest, from inflation to the power crisis and staple food shortages, Nawaz Sharif got quite a windfall in terms of the public mandate. The judicial crisis was not the only wave he now rode. Musharraf had come to symbolize all that had gone wrong with the country by the time he was prevailed upon to bow out.
His legacy is one of many an ambivalent trend in the short but over-active history of the country. The record economic growth in recent years, which averaged over five percent in the aftermath of 9/11 in particular, will be a challenge to match and improve upon by those who follow him. It would help immensely to build upon the good the general did to society even as he reigned and committed the many errors he did. There is no doubt that the opening up of society, building of industrial, urban and fiscal infrastructure, industrial and information technology developments and attracting foreign investment, for example, saw a boost under President Musharraf. The key would lie in doing what a leader pledges, and then leave himself to be judged by the people.
Musharraf’s departure from the rowdy political scene should now leave the ruling coalition with little excuse to drag its feet on the many issues confronting Pakistan and its people. If ever democracy was allowed to run its course, it is now. The hope is that the elected leaders Musharraf has bequeathed his much wronged Pakistan live up to the challenges before them.
(Source: Dawn