Democracy? We don’t need no stinkin’ democracy!
General Pervez Musharraf has been leader of Pakistan since he took control of the government in a bloodless Coup in 1999. He was Pakistani Army Chief of Staff and then assumed the title of Chief Executive of the country. With the Military behind him it wasn’t difficult. A recent run for “re-election” has proven to be quite a problem for him. From the Wikipedia article,
“On October 2, 2007, 85 Pakistani opposition lawmakers resigned from the country’s parliament to derail Musharraf’s reelection bid. National Assembly Speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain stated that the resignations would not affect the presidential election. Under Pakistani law, the national parliament and provincial assemblies choose the president…On October 6, 2007, Musharraf won a vote to be re-elected Pakistan’s president. However, the Supreme Court ruled that no winner will be proclaimed until it decides on the legality issue.”
The Supreme Court was going to rule that a leader could not be head of the army as well as head of the country. Musharraf’s response was to declare martial law/emergency rule, suspend the Constitution and fire the chief justice of the Supreme Court. He has ordered the detainment of protesters and shut down private TV news networks. He has put opposition leader and former Prime Minister Bernazir Bhutto under house arrest.
The United States has given Pakistan over $10 billion dollars since 9/11 because they have proven to be an ally in the “war on terror.” Backing a dictator can be pretty tricky since Musharraf has proven in the last two weeks that he doesn’t really believe in democracy. Oh yeah, and remember that Coup thing? The Bush administration has put pressure on Musharraf and he has declared that there will be new elections in January. He will not lift the state of emergency though. In a region where there is little stability with wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the crisis in Pakistan looks to add to the complexity of problems that Bush will leave to his successor. Go to Bill Moyers Journal and get a detailed account in the report “Pakistan in Peril” by clicking here.
