musharraf declares emergency, boots out justices and clamps down on media
initial statements say he was going to delay elections, later reports show shaukat aziz sayiong polls will be as scheduled and on time, that is what is posted on BBC, does not appear CNN has heard that yet.
Benazir, is going to be on CNN tonight, she is moving about freely, and giving speeches.
Mixed statements from US, so Biden has had scathing words for Musharraf, so did Bill Richardson, but then he was ranked lower than stephen colbert the comedian just last week so I dont really think much of it. Part of it seems like using pkistan and Musharraf as a way for democrats to attack president Bush’s policies.
It does not make sense that Musharraf would take this action without approval from US leadership. Just a few weeks ago when the country was headed in same direction teh statements from US officials seemed to have halted that.
so what is happening now?
lets put the emotionally charged rhetoric aside for a second and evaluate the situation. present hypothesis of what happened and prediction of what we can see in coming days, weeks, months.
Hypothesis 1
the interests of a number of parties aligned
Musharraf’s election was not going to be accepted by Supreme Court because of eligibility
Benazir’s interests in getting indemnity from corruption charges in Pakistan and probably overseas were also looking damaged.
The US brokered relatuionship between benazir and musharraf was having hiccups.
my prediction 1-
US looks good by telling musharraf to have elections and he bows down, elections take place. benazir wins, or if not her one of her pals, yet she retains some important role basically keeping the power, kinda like Thatcher tried with Major..which did nto work out.
so Musharraf becomes more acceptable because he takes these ‘democratic’ measures. he will probably make some high profile moves in FATA in the next few weeks.
benazir comes in teh picture., her cases dropped, established as the hope of moderation in the region etc etc and an example.
UK and US leaders pat themselves on the back for a victory. case study for democratization on that part of the world, since the democracy in iraq cant really be used as a good resume builder
of course that prediction is based on the hypothesis 1, hypothesis 2 thru n will follow.
