Hopefully, 2008 would be the year when last dictator and the army are permanently kicked out of the politics.
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5g1_qXN8-8hsGPJPdMvbrys8fWghQ
Pakistan stared into abyss in 2007
1 hour ago
ISLAMABAD (AFP) — With landmark elections just weeks away, the political upheaval and record violence that left Pakistan staring into the abyss this year could push it over the edge in 2008.
The nuclear-armed Islamic republic goes to the polls on January 8, but with the opposition insisting the vote will be rigged in favour of parties backing President Pervez Musharraf, the results are set to provoke fresh turmoil.
Key US ally Musharraf, who seized power in a coup in 1999, has only just lifted a divisive state of emergency after a year spent battling the judiciary and fighting for his political survival.
The year saw history when Musharraf, under immense international pressure, became the first of Pakistan’s four military rulers since independence to shed his uniform and become a civilian leader.
But it also witnessed the return from exile to centre stage of his two biggest foes – former prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif.
Before he lifted the state of emergency, Musharraf amended the constitution with presidential decrees validating all actions taken in connection with the state of emergency and barring the incoming parliament from challenging it.
The opposition is likely to try to do so anyway, however, and the election of a legislature hostile to the president could plunge the country of 160 million people into more chaos.
“His only option is for political parties that support him to win hands down,” said Hasan Askari, a political analyst and former head of the political science department at Punjab University.
In order to ensure that, Askari said, his supporters are expected to try to manipulate the polls, but “if the rigging is done too openly, it will cause a major reaction against him.”
Pakistan also saw around 40 suicide bombings in 2007 that killed at least 700 people, blamed mostly on pro-Taliban militants in the restive tribal belt bordering Afghanistan.
But twin problems emerged in March that were to shape the year.
First was Musharraf’s attempt to sack the country’s chief justice on charges of misconduct, which many saw as a move to get rid of an independent-minded judge who would threaten to scupper his bid for re-election later in the year.
The move backfired spectacularly, sending tens of thousands of people onto the streets and turning the ousted chief justice, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, into a pro-democracy icon.
Meanwhile students from the radical Red Mosque in the capital Islamabad began a Taliban-style anti-vice campaign, including a series of abductions of alleged prostitutes and of several Chinese nationals.
The mosque’s activities culminated in a bloody standoff there from July 3 to July 10 that turned the heart of the capital into a battleground and left 100 people dead.
An unprecedented series of suicide blasts rocked the country in the following days – and coincided with the Supreme Court’s restoration of the chief justice.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice dissuaded Musharraf from declaring an emergency in August, yet the Supreme Court continued to challenge him.
Musharraf won his prized second term on October 6, but with the proviso that the Supreme Court had to decide on legal challenges against the legitimacy of the vote before the result could be announced.
Sharif, meanwhile, had flown home in September vowing to topple his nemesis – and was promptly deported five hours later, in defiance of a Supreme Court order.
The political situation reached boiling point when a tearful Bhutto touched down in Karachi in October after eight years away – a welcome home wrecked by Pakistan’s deadliest ever terror attack, a double suicide bombing that killed 139 people.
At the same time Islamic militants took over one of the country’s top tourist spots, the northwestern Swat Valley, illustrating the spread of militancy from the tribal belt into Pakistan’s “settled areas”.
Citing rising militancy and judicial interference, Musharraf finally imposed emergency rule on November 3, a move that newspapers quickly dubbed his “second coup.”
The emergency has been lifted and the election is now on track, but a united opposition to Musharraf could mean trouble ahead for the president – and that could mean more political turmoil, analysts say.
“Post-election scenarios have historically been problematic in Pakistan. If the entire opposition joins together, there will be serious problems,” said political analyst Shafqat Mahmood.
“The possibility of a united opposition, supported by civil society and the legal community, is the worst-case scenario for the government after the January polls.”