PAKISTAN: Pakistani president General Pervez Musharraf prepares to shed army uniform

Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf makes a round of farewell visits to headquarters of the three armed forces on the eve of relinquishing charge as army chief. Pakistan's General Pervez Musharraf bid farewell to military colleagues on Tuesday (November 27) as he prepared to become a civilian president after all main opposition parties signed up for a January general election. Musharraf visited Joint Staff headquarters in Rawalpindi as part of his farewell engagements. He also visited the headquarters of the navy and air force in Islamabad. Musharraf is quitting as army chief after securing a second five-year term thanks to a new panel of friendly judges who validated his Oct. 6 election victory. Musharraf will be replaced as army commander by his former intelligence chief, General Ashfaq Kayani. He is well regarded by Western counterparts and also worked with Bhutto after she first became prime minister in the late 1980s. He takes over a nuclear-armed military that analysts say is suffering from low morale largely because it is enmeshed in internal security operations against militants in the northwest who repeatedly strike security forces with suicide bombers. As with Musharraf, Kayani is likely to face calls from the United States and other Western allies with troops in Afghanistan for Pakistan to do more to cut the flow of fighters and weapons from militant havens on the Afghan border. Analysts say Musharraf will be able to count on Kayani's backing as long as huge protests don't erupt. U.S. ally Musharraf is due to step down from the army on Wednesday (November 28) and get sworn in as a civilian president on Thursday (November 29), fulfilling one of the long-held demands of his political rivals and Western allies. U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack welcomed Musharraf's promise to take off his uniform before being sworn in as president as a positive step, but said the state of emergency Musharraf declared on Nov. 3 must be lifted before elections. Former prime ministers back from exile Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif both filed election nominations by Monday's deadline though both said they might still boycott the Jan. 8 vote. Musharraf has seen his popularity slide since March when he tried to fire the country's independent-minded top judge, setting off a campaign against him by lawyers and the opposition. Analysts say his main reason for imposing emergency rule was to clear out Supreme Court judges who were apparently about to rule in favour of challenges to his Oct. 6 re-election as president by parliament. Many ordinary Pakistanis, struggling with rising prices and by-passed by strong growth in recent years, have turned against Musharraf, whose 1999 coup against Sharif was initially widely welcomed.

ITN Source | November 28, 2007

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