Pakistan military given role in governing country

Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf today unilaterally amended the constitution, giving himself the power to dissolve parliament and giving the military a formal role in governing the nation.

General Musharraf made the changes just weeks before elections intended to restore civilian rule.

The changes also ensure he will keep his post as president and military commander-in-chief for another five years.

Elections scheduled for October 10 will choose a new National Assembly as well as provincial parliaments.

“I have made these amendments in the larger interest of the country ... I want to see sustainable democracy in Pakistan,” Musharraf told a news conference in Islamabad.

But he did set some limits on the elections. Musharraf, who seized power in a bloodless military coup in 1999 by toppling then prime minister Nawaz Sharif, said Sharif’s family will not be allowed to contest the election. He said they agreed to live in exile in Saudi Arabia.

“I guarantee you that they will not come back ... even the Saudi authorities will not allow them to come back,” he said.

Musharraf said he would not try to keep former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, who leads Pakistan’s main political party, from returning to Pakistan. She has said she intends to run in the elections, even though she was convicted of corruption by Sharif’s government.

Musharraf said Bhutto would be imprisoned upon her return to serve a pending prison sentence.

“She is also facing 12 other cases and she will have to face these cases,” Musharraf added.

The amendment giving the president power to dissolve parliament is a restoration of an earlier amendment which had been revoked in an attempt to concentrate power with the prime minister.

But the proposal to give the National Security Council the power to oversee the prime minister, the Cabinet and Parliament is the first time the military has been given a formal role in governing the

country.

Musharraf said the next parliament will have the power to undo the amendments, if they can muster the votes. He insisted, though, that the amendments were needed.

“Pakistan is passing through a very crucial transitional period. We are taking Pakistan from democratic dictatorship to elected democracy. I want to introduce a sustainable democratic order,” he said.