Musharraf is pressured to quit

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf was under intense pressure to resign this week, after Pakistan’s parliament began impeachment proceedings against him. Legislators are readying a long list of charges against Musharraf, including that he conspired to destabilize the government that was elected last February and failed to provide adequate security to Benazir Bhutto before her assassination last December. Adding to a chorus of voices urging Musharraf to step down, local assemblies in Pakistan’s four regions held nonbinding votes of no-confidence against him. There was widespread speculation in the Pakistani press that Musharraf, who seized power in a 1999 coup, would sooner quit than face impeachment. But Musharraf’s spokesman denied those reports.

The Musharraf era, for all practical purposes, is over, said Mir Jamilur Rahman in the Islamabad News. The new, democratically elected government simply cannot put up with a leader who has violated the constitution so many times. Among other outrages, Musharraf handed over hundreds of Pakistanis to the U.S. without due process as part of the American “war on terror,” and under his iron fist, hundreds of political opponents “disappeared.” Leaving office voluntarily would be Musharraf’s smartest move. “Once he is impeached, chances of a ‘safe exit’ may rapidly diminish.”

Impeachment is a risky option, though, said the Financial Times in an editorial. The army is unlikely to “stand by and watch the humiliation of a former chief of staff.” Nobody wants to see Pakistan fall to another military coup. It would be more logical for this government to “show it is more than a makeshift coalition” by submitting Musharraf to a parliamentary vote of no-confidence. That would be a perfectly legal way to oust him—without the humiliation of a trial.

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Do we really want to see a Pakistan without Musharraf? said The Wall Street Journal. A strong ally of the U.S. in the war on terror, Musharraf “has understood that fighting religious extremism is as crucial to Pakistan’s sovereignty as it is to the free world’s.” In that vital task, the new government has been a disaster. In its few months in power, it has already “lost control of the frontier provinces to the Taliban,” largely because it foolishly attempted a peace deal with Islamic radicals. Musharraf’s ouster may be inevitable. But Pakistan’s “troubles will be resolved only when the civilian government demonstrates a better understanding of the dangers of militant Islam and shows a determination to fight it.”