Musharraf expected to say he’ll lift emergency rule

Pakistan’s president stepped down as army chief
Wednesday.

WASHINGTON POST

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — President Pervez Musharraf, after formally stepping down as the chief of Pakistan’s powerful army, prepared to announce today a timetable for lifting emergency rule and to take an oath as civilian president, officials here said.

The change of command Wednesday, which ended Musharraf’s eight-year reign as a military ruler and his 36-year career in the army, came as Pakistani troops reported important gains against radical Islamic insurgents in the far north’s Swat Valley. The military said 220 militants were killed and troops seized key ground.

Millions of Pakistanis strongly welcomed the news that Musharraf, 64, who had clung to power for the past month by ousting most Supreme Court justices and suspending the constitution, had fulfilled his pledge to retire as the country’s top general. At an elaborate military ceremony inside army headquarters he handed his symbolic bamboo baton to Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, 55, who succeeds him as army chief.

In Washington, President Bush said Musharraf had promised to remove his uniform and had “kept his word.” But he also said that Musharraf needed to lift emergency rule to “get Pakistan back on the road to democracy.” The Bush administration has long defended Musharraf as an important ally in the war in Afghanistan but stepped up criticism after he cracked down on the judiciary and the media.

Pakistani officials said Musharraf would address the nation after taking his oath and would almost certainly announce that he would end emergency rule before the Jan. 8 polls. They also said the government would release the remaining political activists, journalists and lawyers detained during protests this past month.

Both of Musharraf’s top civilian rivals, former prime ministers Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto, recently returned from exile and are likely to run for parliament, though Sharif has not ruled out boycotting elections if he deems political conditions to be inadequate.

Musharraf’s shift from military to civilian rule of this nuclear-armed Muslim nation of 160 million, a move he made reluctantly under international pressure, lessens but does not resolve the political tensions that have engulfed Pakistan.

It is not clear how much political influence he hopes to wield as a civilian president or what kind of relationship he would have with a new prime minister, especially one from the civilian opposition.

Recently, he has spoken of a future governing “troika,” referring to the president, the prime minister and the new army chief.

But many Pakistanis are eager to see Musharraf out of the political scene entirely, and some analysts predict he may be pushed out of office before the end of his five-year term as civilian president.