President Pervez Musharraf's resignation under threat of a parliamentary impeachment removes a major hurdle in Pakistanis' quest for a democratic transformation of their country. But the road to achieving this objective remains fraught with uncertainty and danger.
Musharraf has left a very painful legacy. During nine years of military rule, he did nothing to prepare Pakistan for his demise. Until the democratic elections of January this year, which he reluctantly held under pressure from the Pakistani public and his main international backer, the United States, he expanded the role of the military and its powerful intelligence service (ISI) in Pakistan's political, economic and cultural life, suppressed party politics, and weakened or made irrelevant the state's political and judicial institutions.
He exploited Pakistan as a source of Muslim extremism and as a means to combat it in order to maintain his military dictatorship at home and endear himself as a US critical ally in the so-called war on terror. At the same time, he took advantage of his US alliance to do what he thought was best for him and Pakistan.
As such, he created a domestic situation and foreign policy posture whereby, rather than pandering to American regional interests, he could make the US dance to his music. While reducing tension with India over Kashmir and proclaiming full support for the efforts of the US and its allies to stabilise and secure Afghanistan, he nonetheless found it in Pakistan's strategic interests to allow the ISI to continue its support for the Taliban in Afghanistan in the face of opposition by the US and its allies.
The security situation on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistan border is now worse than at any time since the toppling of the Taliban's extremist rule in late 2001. It has become a serious challenge not only to the government of Hamid Karzai and the forces of the US and its allies in Afghanistan, but also to Pakistan. Most of Pakistan's tribal areas along the border with Afghanistan have become Talibanised, where the Taliban and Al Qaeda have secured safe haven to carry out operations in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.
However, his politics of deception and two-faced behaviour came unstuck when the Pakistani people finally saw through them by 2006. As a majority of people turned against him and the United States for backing his dictatorship, and as a result Washington could no longer give him full support, Musharraf finally held the January 2008 parliamentary elections.
His expectation was that it would result in a divided parliament, enabling him to continue his rule for another term on the basis of his indirect election by the old parliament that he had filled with his supporters. But this was not to be the case. The two main opposition parties, the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and the Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N), won the elections, forcing him eventually out of power.
Yet the situation that Musharraf has created is not going to make it easy for the PPP and PML-N to maintain their unity of purpose, put Pakistan on a solid path of democratisation and address the country's deep-seated political, economic, and security problems. What has united the PPP and PML-N so far has been their hatred for Musharraf. Otherwise, these two parties do not have a lot in common.
PPP is very secular and opposed to the radical political Islamism that has come to sweep Pakistan, especially in its Northwest and Baluchistan provinces. It is amenable to an accommodation with the military and the United States, and therefore to an alliance with the US.
On the other hand, the PML-N of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, whom Musharraf deposed in a coup in 1999, has thrived on its Islamic credentials and has favoured a less confrontational and more conciliatory approach in dealing with the forces of radical Islamism in Pakistan.
It has also been critical of Pakistan's alliance with the US, which it claims has compromised Pakistan's sovereignty, preventing it from engaging in the kind of policy behaviour which would be in accord with the realities of the situation in Pakistan rather than with the demands of America's war on terror.
How the PPP-PML-N relations are going to unfold from this point will be critical to the transformation of Pakistan into a viable and stable state. If these two parties could work out a mutually acceptable working arrangement and reach a clear understanding with the military and Washington, one could be optimistic about the chances of Pakistan emerging from Musharraf's legacy with positive results. However, if this does not materialise, the future of Pakistan looks as grim as its past.
It is now imperative for the international community to remain fully engaged with Pakistan and provide help and understanding to enable its civilian leadership to consolidate its unity and to succeed in bringing about the kind of structural reforms that are required to ensure a better future for Pakistan.
Washington's support of Musharraf's dictatorship was premised on what was required for the success of the war on terror. However, it now has to work with Pakistan's civilian government and military on the basis of what can help Pakistan's transformation into a stable and secure democracy.
This means that it needs to adopt a new policy approach. In this, it must take account of the fact that without a stable and secure Pakistan, Afghanistan is most likely to languish in its present dire situation for much longer than can be anticipated at this stage.
Amin Saikal is professor of political science and director of the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies (the Middle East and Central Asia) at the ANU.
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