Few Pakistanis will lament the enforced early departure of Pervez Musharraf as Pakistan's president as a result of long-running attempts by the country's political opposition to have him impeached. Musharraf was deeply unpopular with ordinary Pakistanis, loathed by former prime minister and head of the Pakistan Muslim League, Nawaz Sharif, and barely tolerated by the widower of former prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, and the man who leads the Pakistan People's Party in a precarious parliamentary ruling coalition, Asif Ali Zardari. Not even the country's military, which might be expected to exhibit some loyalty to a former chief of staff, expressed much sorrow at his resignation, and President George W. Bush, once his stoutest defender, concluded some time ago that Musharraf was either unwilling or incapable of preventing Taliban forces from using Pakistan's lawless tribal regions as a redoubt from which to launch offensives against NATO troops in Afghanistan and should be sidelined.

How different it might have been had Musharraf accepted his time was up when his political party, the PML-Q, won only 15 per cent of the seats in elections in February. Had he retired gracefully then, clearing the way for a return to democracy, Musharraf might have been forgiven his past sins and lauded for his selflessness and sacrifice. Now he will be remembered chiefly for the obsessive, vainglorious attempts to legitimise his presidency, which included rigging the 2002 presidential elections and, in 2007, sacking the country's entire Supreme Court in an effort to overturn the constitutional ban on military officers seeking high office for two years after they retire from the army. Musharraf's failure to address Pakistan's social inequalities and economic woes and his inability to contain extremists who want Pakistan to become an Islamic theocracy of the sort that existed in Afghanistan before the Taliban were overthrown in 2001 will also figure prominently in his political obituaries.

This assessment needs to be balanced by consideration of the extraordinarily difficult circumstances of Musharraf's period in power, and by the endemic instability and volatility of Pakistani politics since independence in 1947 during which time the army has seized power four times in response to what it has alleged were corrupt and incompetent democratic administrations. The circumstances that led to the military's overthrow of Sharif in 1999 a deepening economic crisis, charges of judicial interference, attempts to alter the constitution and a deeply unpopular leader bear some similarities with those that led to Musharraf's resignation this week. In Sharif's case, there were also well-founded suspicions of widespread corruption. As is their wont, the generals declared they were committed to returning Pakistan to civilian rule, but nonetheless were under international pressure, especially from the US, to return to their barracks. But, after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the Americans recognised Musharraf was potentially a key ally in the hunt for Osama bin Laden and the war against terrorism. The White House retreated from its demands that he return Pakistan to civilian rule, and helped to ensure his government was lavished with billions of dollars in aid. Despite knowing he risked creating considerable anger and disaffection among fellow Pakistanis in signing the country up to fight a war on behalf of the US against an Islamic jihadist group that enjoyed strong support within Pakistan, Musharraf was only too willing to be feted. The money, alas, was not used for the common good, and Musharraf proved more adept at blocking all further attempts at a transition to democracy than he did in orchestrating any kind of successful military action against Taliban elements which had sought sanctuary in Pakistan after being driven out of Afghanistan or indeed seeking to allow the Americans into the country to hunt down Osama bin Laden themselves. In any event, the fastness of Pakistan's remote tribal regions, the area's strong tribal affiliations, and downright hostility to American interests within the country's military always conspired against Musharraf being able to deliver what the White House had hoped he could. Which is why, when it finally realised it, the US formulated a plan involving the popular return of Bhutto (a supporter of the war on terrorism) to govern jointly with Musharraf who, if seen as ineffectual, was still regarded by the US as sound. Bhutto's death, almost certainly engineered by anti-American Taliban sympathisers, spelled the end of those hopes, and it sabotaged Musharraf's attempts to cling to power. Musharraf's resignation will be a fillip for democracy in Pakistan, but experience suggests that neither of the two main parties, the PPP or the PML-N, are capable of what the country so desperately needs. The alternative is authoritarian military rule. Ordinary Pakistanis will be hoping that perhaps, finally, the country's politicians can put aside their distrust of each other and provide competent and clean government.