Chowrangi

Why don’t our leaders learn from history? General Musharraf must have seen the downfall of Ayub Khan and Z.A. Bhutto, who were both humiliated before being overthrown. Even Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif were removed when there was great public pressure on them, in fact it was Musharraf himself who had to act when Nawaz thought he was above the law.

So why is Musharraf making the same mistakes that his predecessors did? Is it because too much power makes a man blind to reality? What was the need to sack the Supreme Court’s judges when he knew that the lawyers would again protest, as they did when he removed the Chief Justice the first time? You can’t say that he acted according to the advice given to him by his sycophants. If there is one thing which should be evident to all sensible men, it’s that you can’t fool everyone all the time. The tragedy, of course, is that there was no need to act so irrationally. He was very popular until 9th March, and he would have remained popular if he hadn’t insisted on getting elected by the outgoing assemblies. He should never have made a clandestine deal with BB. A real pity, really. I would definitely prefer Musharraf over the two shameless looters who preceded him. And I know that most people agree with me.

Other posts by Shakir Lakhani

• No limit on foreign exchange taken out of Pakistan - November 12th, 2008
• Some questions about the "forex" scandal - November 11th, 2008
• Enjoying life after sixty - November 7th, 2008
• A Hussein in the White House - November 5th, 2008
• Why are poor Pakistanis always punished? - October 31st, 2008
• Pakistan's Economic Crisis: we're responsible - October 29th, 2008
• How Wall Street operates - October 23rd, 2008
• We’ll always have corruption - October 19th, 2008
• If Pakistan goes to war with United States of America - October 9th, 2008
• Killing of Christians in Secular India - October 1st, 2008