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Pervez Musharraf

Pervez Musharraf died at a hospital in Dubai on 5 February 2023 at the age of 79 after a prolonged illness with amyloidosis, a rare disease wherein an abnormal protein builds up in organs, causing them to malfunction.

On 14 October 1999, General Pervez Musharraf, Army Chief of Staff, declared a state of emergency and issued the Provisional Constitutional Order (PCO), which suspended the federal and provincial Parliaments, held the Constitution in abeyance, and designated Musharraf as Chief Executive. Following the 12 October 1999 ouster of the government of Prime Minister Sharif, the military-led government stated its intention to restructure the political and electoral systems. Musharraf officially became head of the Pakistani state on 20 June 2001.

Musharraf's takeover was unconstitutional, but there was silent approval by the majority of Pakistanis at the time. The Pakistani people believed the Army would bring sweeping changes to Pakistan by restoring the country's international image, eliminating widespread corruption, stabilizing the security situation, and providing jobs and hope to the general population. After 3 years of General Musharraf's rule, public enchantment with the Army had waned.

The 1999 coup was not the first attempt by the military to intervene in the chaotic political situation during the 1980s and 1990s. Musharraf's first blatant attempt to hang onto power was on 30 April 2002, when he held a referendum to confirm himself as president for the next 5 years. The government claimed a 60 percent turnout in which 97 percent of voters approved of Musharraf remaining as president. The press, international monitoring groups, human rights organizations, and all domestic political parties accused the government of electoral fraud. Independent observers put the turnout at between 10 and 20 percent.

Seeking to ease international concern about the nature of his regime and rise to power, Musharraf sought to put Nawaz Sharif, and six others, on trial for attempted murder and hijacking in relation to the October coup. The charges were centered around the allegation that Sharif had ordered landing rights denied to a plane carrying Musharraf and 200 other people, said to have been dangerously low on fuel. Military forces eventually took control of the Karachi airport and allowed the plane to land, an event followed just hours later by the completion of the coup. The charges also alleged that Sharif had attempt to collect men and arms in preparation for a counter coup and had sought to kill Musharraf. Sharif was convicted in April 2000 and sentenced to life in prison. By May he was put on trial again by the Musharraf government on charges of corruption. In July he was convicted on charges of tax evasion. Sharif's legal defense team boycotted these trails on numerous occasions in protest of the fairness of the proceedings. In December 2000, Sharif went into self-imposed exile in Saudi Arabia.

General Musharraf banned Sunni militants Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and its Shiite counterpart Sipah-e-Mohammad in August 2001. After the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were attacked on September 11, 2001, Musharraf pledged complete cooperation with the United States in the war on terror, which included locating and shutting down terrorist training camps within Pakistan's borders, cracking down on extremist groups and withdrawing support for the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.

In January 2002, he banned four more groups, Jaish-e-Mohammad, Tehrik-e-Jafaria Pakistan, Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan and Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi. The latter was banned for "misleading thousands of simple poor people into Afghanistan and being responsible for their massacre." The banned groups were reorganized under new names. The Jamaiat-ud-Dawa (JuD) was the rechristened version of Lashkar-e-Taiba. The banned Tehrik-e Jafaria Pakistan had renamed itself Tehrik-e-Islami, Masood Azhar's Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) had resumed working as Khudam-ul-Islam and Al Furqan. The Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan, led by the slain Azam Tariq, was reincarnated as Millat-e-Islamia Pakistan. The Markaz-ad-Dawa-wal-Irsahd subsequently operated as the Jamaat-ad-Dawa.

The PML-Q, also called the "king's party" due to its perceived pro-military bent, won 118 of the total 342 seats in the 2002 general elections in Pakistan, mostly from Punjab. The affiliated National Alliance won 16 seats. This gave the pro-Musharraf parties a plurality in the National Assembly, but not a majority. As expected, the PPP did well in Sindh, but was unable to form a working coalition in that province's legislature. The PML-N suffered huge losses, winning only 19 national seats, all of them in Punjab. The Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM) did well in Sindh's provincial elections. The MQM collected only a small percentage of the national vote (winning 17 national seats), and aligned itself with the PML-Q. Small parties and independents account for the remaining 31 seats. The previously influential Awami National Party was shut out at the national level.

In November 2002 Pakistan's National Assembly elected Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali as the country's first civilian prime minister since the 1999 military coup. The 58-year-old Pakistani leader was from the southwestern province of Balochistan. He won 172 votes out of 328, defeating candidates from an Islamic alliance and the party of exiled former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. For almost five weeks after the general election, Mr. Jamali's party held several rounds of talks with the alliance of Islamic parties, the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, to form a coalition. The negotiations broke down over differences over President Musharraf's constitutional amendments, which allow him to stay in office for five more years. The amendments also gave the president power to dismiss the elected government. Prime Minister Jamali's party accepted these changes, saying they were needed to ensure a stable democratic system in Pakistan.

In late 2003 Pakistan's year-long political crisis came to an end with a landmark agreement between the ruling party and the opposition over controversial constitutional amendments introduced by President Pervez Musharraf. The deal came following a year of negotiations and debate between the pro-Musharraf ruling party and the leading opposition alliance of religious groups, the Mutahidda Majlis-e Amal. In exchange for the president's promise to quit his military post, the MMA agreed to support a series of constitutional changes that give sweeping powers to the office of the president. However, the opposition refused to recognize the amendments unless they were approved in the legislature by a two-thirds majority, as called for in the constitution. The political scene had been tense throughout most of 2003, which saw protests by lawmakers in the Pakistani parliament on more than one occasion and the arrest of opposition leader Javed Hashimi in October.

On 29 December 2003 the National Assembly passed the 17th Constitutional Amendment Bill, the Legal Framework Order (LFO), with a two-thirds majority, giving sweeping powers to President General Pervez Musharraf and validating the military takeover of 12 October 1999, and all subsequent acts of the military government. Two hundred and forty-eight members voted in favor of the bill and no vote cast against the amendments as the PPPP, PML-N and other opposition parties boycotted the vote. The Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) was the only opposition party that supported the government to further amend the Constitution. General Musharraf publicly pledged to quit as army chief by December 2004. Musharraf would remain president after removing his military uniform. He would then have to take vote of confidence from the National Assembly, Senate and four provincial assemblies within one month of giving up his military authority. Musharraf secured this political victory by striking a deal with six hard-line Islamic parties. In exchange for his pledge to step down as head of the Army in 2004, he received a promise from the parties to support the ratification of constitutional amendments. The passage of the LFO was followed by an assassination attempt in which Musharraf narrowly escaped.

By early 2004 Pakistan seemed on the verge of political destabilization. Islamic radicals were seeking to overthrow Musharraf's regime for some time, but the beginning of the US driven Global War on Terror created further tension. Musharraf supported the United States' operation against the Taliban in Afghanistan. He also took steps to reach another reconciliation with India in the conflict over Kashmir, inciting the ire of Kashmiri militants, many of whom have been widely believed to be funded, directly or indirectly by the Pakistani intelligence services. Musharraf was also been helpful in the Americans' search for Osama Bin Laden and other al Qaida leaders said to be hiding in northern Pakistan. He was ruling a country in which over much of the population hated America, though whether that was a product of his support for US policy or US support for Pakistani government policy has been unclear. However, the General and the largely secular army command have been serious obstacles to Pakistan sliding into what many have feared would become a regime as fanatical as that of Afghanistan's Taliban or Iran's Mullahs. It is hard to imagine what would happen if Islamic radicals prevailed in Pakistan.

The Pakistani political establishment was rocked by the nuclear proliferation scandal of Abdul Qadeer Khan (more often referred to as a A.Q. Khan) during the early months of 2004. A.Q. Khan, the father of Pakistan's nuclear program, had achieved an almost heroic status in Pakistan. His popularity among almost all level of society and the state of the regime ultimately led to the official pardon by President Musharraf in February 2004 following Khan's admission to transferring nuclear secrets to states like North Korea.

In July 2004 Pakistan's Prime Minister designate Shaukat Aziz survived a suicide attack aimed at him by al Qaida militants. Aziz would go on to win two by-elections in August paving the way to his assumption of the role of Prime Minister. Aziz had been Musharraf's Minister of Finance, and his assumption of the role of Prime Minister was aimed at attempting to focus energy on Pakistan's troubled economy. At the end of August Aziz became Prime Minister of Pakistan.

In another move to stabilize the political situation, the pro-Musharraf ruling party pushed a bill through parliament in November 2004 to allow the military leader to retain both portfolios until 2007, when new elections were due. Thus on 30 December 2004 Musharraf formally declared that he would retain the army chief's post, breaking his public pledge that he would give up his uniform by the end of the year. In a televised address to the nation, President Musharraf asserted that to give up his military uniform at the time would undermine Pakistan's political and economic stability. Musharraf said that lawmakers of the opposition MMA had not kept their promise to avoid what he called politics of confrontation. The MMA and other political parties strongly criticized President Musharraf for breaking his promise.

In April 2005, after reports suggesting a partial thaw with former prime minister's in exile Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, the husband of Benazir Bhutto was arrested reentering Pakistan. This particular arrest was one of a number labeled as a serious crackdown on the political opposition during the month. Protests came not only from political and religious moderates, but also from religious extremists and their political entities, who continued to challenge Musharraf's alliance with the United States and policies against Islamic oriented militants in Pakistan's tribal border regions. Political opponents were incensed at reports in May 2005 that Musharraf was contemplating staying in power after his term came up in 2007.

In October 2005 an earthquake in Pakistan killed over 80,000 people in the country's north. It provided a brief respite for the embattled regime of Pervez Musharraf as various political entities banded together to tackle the humanitarian implications of the disaster. The disaster affected relationships between various militant groups and the Pakistani government and contributed to one of what had been a number of Indo-Pakistani thaws over Kashimir, despite Musharraf's assertion earlier in the year that government policy on the disputed territory remained the same. The positive outcomes of the disaster were short lived as spurts of violence between the government and militants continued by the end of the year and into 2006.

In January 2006 Interpol issued fresh warrants, called "Red Notices" on behalf of the Pakistani government for the arrest of Benazir Bhutto and her husband, who had been arrested while in Pakistan in 2005. Bhutto denounced the charges as politically motivated and an attempt to divert attention from Pakistani policies and an errant US air strike into Pakistan that had claimed the lives of a number of innocent civilians. 2006 also saw a major clampdown on militants and political elements pushing for independence or greater autonomy for ethnic Balochis and the Pakistani province of Balochistan. On 26 August 2006 the primary leader of the movements for greater Baloch independence, Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti, was killed by Pakistani security forces triggering massive protests, riots, and other violence, subsequently followed by an equally harsh response from government forces. Those many believed Musharraf to have personally ordered the attack that killed him, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz publicly denied such claims suggesting that the killing had been accidental, the results of nearby fighting.

A move in a different direction came when President Musharraf signed a peace deal with tribal leaders to bring pressure to Taliban militants in Northern Pakistan. The deal was much criticized by his Western allies, and even some in his own government, who doubted whether the tribal leaders would hold their end of the bargain, and whether essentially buying off his opponents was a viable strategy. Musharraf staunchly defended the proposal in the face of rising Taliban linked violence in provinces like Waziristan, coming just years after he declared the Taliban in these regions to have been eliminated.

The year 2007 brought a massive political crisis to Pakistan. Rooted in President Musharraf's initial idea of stepping down in 2007 and his subsequent plans to stand in the long proposed 2007 elections, political crisis rapidly built up. Perhaps the most serious inciting incident came on 9 March 2007, when Musharraf suspended Iftikhar Chaudhry, Chief Justice of the Pakistani Supreme Court, who had largely been expected to rule that it would be illegal for Musharraf to stand in the upcoming elections. Suited lawyers and other took the streets in protest, leading to violent confrontations with Pakistani police and paramilitary forces. Protests continued for months, while Musharraf attempted to tout Pakistan's record in counter-terrorism operations as an indication of the success of his leadership. That these claims had been called into question publicly by high ranking US military personnel in the region did little to help Musharraf's case.

By May 2007 Pakistani security forces had been issued a shoot on sight order in Karachi in response to political violence there, showing the magnitude of the crisis. In June 2007 the Army was reported as coming out in favor of Musharraf, a reality seen as key to his immediate political survival. Musharraf caved to popular opinion in July, reinstating Chaudhry, but soon found himself embroiled in another domestic crisis. Radical Islamic opponents of his regime had taken control of the Red Mosque Islamabad, and for a time held hostages, before releasing them. The subsequent military operation in July 2007 in which most of the militants were killed, was condemned as a use of excessive force, especially in the face of the facts that many of hostages had already been released.

As the year came to a close even more dramatic changes began to occur. The reinstatement of Chaudhry led the judicial system to defy President Musharraf and order the release of Javed Hashimi, who had been held since 2003. Even more daunting was the return in August 2007 of Nawaz Sharif to Pakistan, with Benazir Bhutto suggesting that she too would likely be returning to contest elections. Sharif's supporters rallied around him and were influential in preventing his immediate arrest as had been threatened by Pakistani authorities. Musharraf attempted to strike a deal with Benazir Bhutto while she was still in exile to no avail, but did succeed in being cleared to run in the upcoming election. In November 2007 Musharraf attempting to control the political situation imposed an period of Emergency Rule, giving himself various authorities and putting Benazir Bhutto, who had returned as she planned at the end of October, under house arrest. The restrictions on her travel were lifted, only to be reinstated again before the end of November.

Until 2007, two of the country's major politicians, former Prime Ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, were in self-imposed exile in the Middle East, both wanted by the government of Pervez Musharraf on charges of corruption. Bhutto's People's Party of Pakistan (PPP), under the banner of the People's Party of Pakistan Parliamentarians (PPPP), and Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) [PML(N)] were contesting elections and hope to draw upon residual support for the exiled leaders. While the Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM) did not have nationwide support base, it remained a major political force in the urban Sindh areas. Besides the PPPP and PML(N), key national level players include the Pakistan Muslim League (Quaid-e-Azam) [PML(Q)], a breakaway faction of the original PML, which acquired the label of the "King's Party" due to its strong government backing, the Grand National Alliance, a coalition of regional parties and senior politicians supported by the government, and the Muttahid Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), an alliance of first 4 and later 6 major religious parties that recently received some government support to counter the influence of the PPPP. The Tehrik-i-Insaf, led by Imran Khan, has received considerable publicity, but continued to be considered less than a national-level force.

Indigenous and international terrorist groups continually pledged to assassinate Musharraf and other senior Pakistan government officials and remained a significant threat. International and indigenous terrorist groups continued to pose a high threat to senior Pakistani government officials, military officers and US interests. The Prime Minister and a corps commander were the targets of assassination attempts dating to the summer of 2003. President Musharraf remains at high risk of assassination, although no known attempts on his life occurred after the attacks in December 2003. Investigations into the two December 2003 attempts revealed complicity among junior officers and enlisted personnel in the Pakistani Army and Air Force. If Musharraf were to be assassinated or otherwise replaced, Pakistan's it was highly expected that the new leader would be less pro-US. It was also predicted that extremist Islamic politicians would gain greater influence.

Musharraf survived final challenges to his stand for election by finally following through on his promise to give up his military authority. He was sworn in as the civilian president of Pakistan in November 2007. He lifted his Emergency Rule provision in December 2007, and all seemed on track for the election.

On 27 December 2007 Benazir Bhutto was assassinated during a political rally. Her death drew international condemnation and various accusations and questions both inside and outside Pakistan as to the perpetrators and any complicity on the part of Pakistani security forces. No link was substantiated to the Pakistani government and elections were delayed until February from January. Musharraf vowed to apprehend the killers, a statement that drew some residual criticism as insincere.

The elections in February 2008 went along as planned and the Pakistani Parliament became filled with members of the opposition parties. Their success was in spite claims by independent observers from the United States and Europe that pro-Musharraf parties likely had serious benefits in terms of media exposure and permission to hold political rallies, suggesting serious dissatisfaction with the government of Pervez Musharraf. Musharraf called upon his opponents to form a coalition with his party, calls which were summarily rejected. The PPP, led by the late Benazir Bhutto's widower Asif Ali Zardari, looked to form a political alliance with Islamic parties who had fared poorly, despite fears that anti-Musharraf sentiment would promote Islamic radicalism in government.

On 18 August 2008, under domestic political pressure from Pakistan's coalition government, Musharraf resigned from the presidency -- marking the end of an era. Musharraf, who seized control of the nuclear-capable state through a bloodless military coup in 1999, was considered a key ally in the U.S.-led war against terrorism since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States. But Musharraf's critics alleged that he was playing a kind of double game with the United States in the war on terrorism -- arresting some Al-Qaeda militants but giving sway to local militants with ties to the ISI intelligence service. Islamabad had consistently denied such allegations.

Chairman of Pakistan's Senate Mohammedmian Soomro Monday assumed charge as the acting president hours after Pervez Musharraf announced his resignation. Pakistani constitution says that if the office of president becomes vacant, the chairman of Senate shall act as president until a new one is elected. Soomro comes from a renowned political family of southern Sindh, that has been active in public life since 1923. His father, the late Ahmed Mian Soomro, was a seasoned parliamentarian, who was deputy speaker of the West Pakistan Assembly and a member of the Senate of Pakistan and helped establish the Senate Committee systems there.

On 18 January 2016 Pervez Musharraf was cleared of wrongdoing in the 2006 killing of Baloch independence advocate Nawab Akbar Bugti. A Pakistani court acquitted former military ruler Pervez Musharraf over the killing of a separatist leader in 2006. "The court has dismissed all the charges against former ruler Pervez Musharraf and all those named in the case," Aftab Sherpao, a former interior minister also named in the case said. Bugti was killed during a counter-insurgency operation in 2006, amid a broader crackdown on Baloch separatists. The crackdown itself was ordered by Musharraf, but the court presiding over the Bugti case found the former ruler wasn't involved in the Bugti killing.