Editorial
Violence in Karachi
Musharraf must read the writing on the wall
There is a clear need for President Pervez Musharraf to step back from the brink. After the violence which claimed no fewer than thirty four lives in Karachi on Saturday, it has become obvious how the military ruler and his supporters have pushed Pakistan to a crisis that can only add to the many afflictions it already suf-fers from. Among those afflictions is the absence of a democratic order, a situation brought about by Gen-eral Musharraf's coup of October 1999. In these past eight years, he has hung on to office through a resort to various measures, including of course the time worn method of influencing shifty politicians on to his side. A faction of the Muslim League holds power but by his leave. And now it appears that the ethnic-based Muttahida Qaumi Mahaz, people brought together by their common status as descendants of Urdu-speaking immigrants in the post-partition period, has taken to supporting Musharraf's cause, whatever that cause may be. It was the MQM which unleashed its followers on the roads of Karachi on fans of dismissed Chief Justice Iftekhar Muhammad Chaudhry.The bloodletting on Saturday will be seen, for all the right reasons, as a further decline in the fortunes of Pakistan's military ruler. There is already a widely accepted sentiment that Musharraf dismissed Chaudhry out of fear that the judge would block his moves for a fresh period in presidential office. On top of that, the persistent refusal by the president to doff his military uniform has continued to ruffle feelings in Pakistan, to a point where people believe that his con-stituency remains the army and not the politicians who back him. That belief is not without reason. But far more important than the base on which General Musharraf operates is the fact that he refuses either to give up power or create the conditions which will lib-eralise the narrow parameters of politics he has put in place, clearly for his own benefit. In these past many weeks, increasing levels of authoritarianism have been demonstrated by the president, in marked contrast to the liberal, modern image he originally conveyed when he first seized power from a corrupt Nawaz Sharif government. He has gone after his opponents with frenzy. His move against the chief justice was a blatant attempt at creating a pliant judiciary. It is time for President Musharraf to read the writ-ing on the wall. The history of the rise and fall of mili-tary rulers in Pakistan ought to be a guide to what he can do to help himself and his country out of the pre-sent crisis.
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