The Messiah streak

It is good to hear from President Musharraf that he would not leave the country under any circumstances. It is strange, though, that while at the height of power, he should have been ruling out the return of leaders of mainstream political parties. In this messy situation one would have wished that he had not played the army card and refrained from uttering such words: “This is not the army, which will abandon me.” In this manner, he appears to be holding out a threat to not only the opponent political parties but also the vast majority of people who, as the various opinion polls indicate, want him to go.

The point in his speech that he underwent training to attack and not to defend gives an uneasy feeling that rather than accepting the verdict of the Parliament, should it decide to vote him out of office, he would aggressively attempt to hold on to power, an ironic finale to a tenure marked with loud declarations of an earnest commitment to the promotion of democracy.