Pervez Musharraf, Led Pakistan With Oppression and Died Accused of Treason

After a long illness after spending years in self-imposed exile, former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf died this morning, February 5, 2023, in a hospital in Dubai.

The Pakistani army and the Pakistani embassy in the UAE announced that Musharraf, the former army chief who stepped down from power in 2008 after widespread opposition, had died at the age of 79.

"I can confirm that he passed away this morning," Shazia Siraj, spokesperson for Pakistan's consulate in Dubai and embassy in Abu Dhabi, told Reuters.

Musharraf is the first military ruler to be brought to trial in Pakistan for violating the country's constitution. On December 17, 2019, the judiciary sentenced him to death after being convicted of high treason.

The former general, who seized power in a military coup in 1999, oversaw the country's rapid economic growth, according to observers, but his brutal use of force to suppress dissent and his continued support for the United States in its fight against armed groups ultimately led to his downfall.

Musharraf had been allowed to travel abroad for treatment even though he was facing accusations of "high treason" in Pakistan, and had already traveled to Dubai in 2016 and settled there until his death.

 

Origin and Formation

Musharraf was born in Delhi, India, on August 11, 1943. He was four years old when India declared its independence, and Pakistan was established as a home for the Muslims of India.

Musharraf's Muslim family immigrated to Pakistan a few months before the declaration of independence in August 1947.

His father joined the Pakistani civil service, directly working for the Pakistani government, after which his father joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

In 1957, Musharraf joined St. Patrick's High School in Karachi and later studied mathematics at Forman Christian College in Lahore, as well as receiving his education at the Royal Defense Studies College in Britain.

Musharraf entered the Pakistan Military Academy in 1961 and then joined the Pakistani army in 1964.

Musharraf became involved as a second lieutenant in the course of the Indo-Pakistani war in 1965. By the 1980s, he had become an artillery brigade commander.

Musharraf was promoted to major general in the 1990s and assigned command of an infantry division, and soon thereafter assumed the position of deputy military secretary and director general of military operations.

His star appeared on the Pakistani scene when Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif appointed him as commander of the armed forces.

Sharif tried to remove Musharraf from his position as army chief after months of disagreements between the two, but he failed.

In response, Musharraf orchestrated a coup in 1999, allowing him to seize the presidency of Pakistan in 2001.

 

Fateful Coup

The coup took place on October 12, 1999, after a split occurred between Sharif and Musharraf as a result of the Kargil War that took place between India and Pakistan in 1999, following New Delhi's accusation of Islamabad supporting Hizbul Mujahideen in Kashmir, to end the tensions between the two men with Musharraf's seizure of power.

Following the military coup, Musharraf immediately declared a state of emergency, dissolved parliament, suspended the constitution, and later named himself president.

After that, the Pakistani parliament approved the coup with legitimacy, but the opposition challenged Musharraf's legitimacy in 2001.

It said that he did not have the right to hold a summit meeting with India, so Musharraf held a popular referendum in June of the same year, hoping to bring the legitimacy he aspired to be the de facto president of Pakistan.

In April 2002, Musharraf organized elections, which were described as lacking in integrity, and through which he was elected president of the country for 5 years.

His party took control of parliament and tightened its grip on state institutions, to be sworn in November of the same year.

Musharraf had pledged before his election to give up his military responsibilities as army chief before the end of 2004.

However, on December 30, 2004, he announced that he had decided to retain his responsibilities as army chief of staff after opposition demonstrations took place calling on him to fulfill his pledges not to combine the presidency of the republic with the presidency of the army, and to violate the country's constitution.

 

Second Presidential

After the end of the first presidential term, Musharraf announced his re-election for a second presidential term, and promised again to resign from the presidency of the army, but this resignation stipulated his re-election as president of the country.

Musharraf entered into a political crisis with the opposition, which said that the Pakistani constitution prohibits Musharraf from running for elections if he did not previously resign from his position as army chief.

The presidential elections took place in October 2007, according to the indirect election system, where the House of Representatives and the Senate and 4 regional representative councils elected the president by secret ballot; Musharraf enjoyed a large majority in those councils after the resignation of 160 opponents.

By November 24, 2007, the Electoral Commission of Pakistan announced that Musharraf officially assumed the country's presidency for a second constitutional term of 5 years.

They are Wajihuddin Ahmed, a former Supreme Court judge who refused to submit to Musharraf's authority after the coup on October 12, 1999, and Ameen Faheem, deputy head of the Pakistan People's Party led by former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

However, the situation did not stabilize after the announcement of Musharraf as president for a second term, as political crises were ravaging Pakistan because of his failure to fulfill his pledges to resign from the presidency of the army.

In addition, the judicial battle that Musharraf faced with the judges since his coup threatened in an unprecedented way his survival in power.

So he issued a decision to suspend the constitution and impose a state of emergency, in an effort to repeat the experience that he had witnessed during the coup, in which he canceled the constitution and declared a state of emergency.

But it did not work this time, as his relationship with the political center witnessed an unprecedented deterioration, and his popularity declined, and that decline coincided with the escalation of pressures and protests accusing him of "high treason," which exacerbated the crisis, forcing Musharraf to submit his resignation on August 18, 2008.

Those actions in which Musharraf decided to declare an emergency and suspend the constitution, which came as an attempt by him to stay in power, were the ones that resulted in a judicial death sentence and were considered high treason.

Musharraf fought a judicial battle no less intense than the political battle with the opposition parties. This had an influential role in the decline of his popularity, and it can be said that he lost the judicial battle in addition to losing the political one.

One of the charges against Musharraf, on which a court ruling was issued on December 17, 2019, was the impeachment of Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry.

This was after Chaudhry launched a fierce campaign against Musharraf, forcing him to relinquish army command, pardon Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto, allowing them to return from exile, and then resign and relinquish the presidency later.

Prior to that, Chaudhry nullified several presidential decisions for being inconsistent with the constitution, released political prisoners, and insisted, throughout the general's rule, on declaring Musharraf's violation of the constitution, by combining the presidency of the state with the leadership of the army.

That judicial activity prompted Musharraf to dismiss Chaudhry from his post, but the Supreme Court overturned the president's decision, and the judiciary entered into a confrontation with the general, as a result of which Musharraf tried to isolate the Attorney General, but he did not succeed to do so, which contributed to the decline in Musharraf's popularity and led to his resignation in the end.

 

In the Line of Fire

In 1999, Musharraf appeared on television addressing the people in a speech where he pledged to save Pakistan from collapse and ensure its security and strength, but he added to the economic decline the most severe political crises in the country's history.

Musharraf's assumption of power coincided with the events of September 11, 2001, which became the most prominent and distinctive event of his years of rule, leading to deep and dramatic changes in his country's relationship with the rest of the world.

When the Americans decided to respond to al-Qaeda, General Musharraf allowed them to use Pakistani territory to strike the Taliban and then invade Afghanistan, and he further declared his support for US President George Bush, which led to a decline in his popularity, again.

The support did not stop on allowing the use of Pakistani lands to invade the Afghan neighbor, but also handed over to the Americans Pakistani citizens whom Washington accuses of "terrorism."

Musharraf had admitted in his book, In the Line of Fire, that he had handed over a number of Pakistani citizens to the international coalition forces, who were taken to Guantanamo Bay, which increased discontent with Musharraf, and the decline of his shares among the human rights and popular circles.

In addition, the Red Mosque crisis, which coincided with his candidacy for a second presidential term, contributed to his decline in popularity, as Musharraf ordered the demolition of a number of mosques in the capital, including the Red Mosque, claiming that it was built illegally on state-owned land.

Protests took place against Musharraf's decision, killing more than 70 people, and raising the intensity of popular anger, especially from supporters of Islamic groups and religious schools, against the US-allied general.

After submitting his resignation in 2008, Musharraf left Pakistan but returned in 2013 to join the election before the judiciary prevented him from running because of the issues he was involved in, and the army refused to support him again.

At the same time, Musharraf faced challenges in domestic politics, the most important of which was the return of his opponent, Nawaz Sharif, from exile to Pakistan in 2007, which was the beginning of the end of his reign.

Then Musharraf moved to Karachi in April 2014, after a disappointment he did not expect, and then left the country two years later, heading to Dubai under the pretext of receiving treatment.

Although Musharraf's death sentence was politically and popularly accepted in Pakistan, it angered the military establishment, which denounced the decision in a statement, saying: "It caused a lot of pain and sorrow for the armed forces, soldiers and officers."