By Mohammed Najeeb
Islamabad, Nov 29 (IANS) Attired in a black sherwani, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf Thursday took oath as head of state for five more years, this time as a civilian, vowing to hold parliamentary elections in January come what may.
The country’s opposition boycotted the official ceremony where Musharraf, who stepped down as the army chief Wednesday after ruling the country in uniform for eight years following intense Western pressure.
As Chief Justice Abdul Hameed Doggar administered the oath at the presidency’s Darbar Hall, Musharraf, 64, said: “It’s an emotional and nostalgic stage for me… I have quit from the army after almost half a century of association.”
He said Pakistan was passing through the third phase of the transition towards democracy. “There is great turbulence. I have full conviction that we will come out of this very soon.”
In his new position too Musharraf retains enormous power – to dissolve parliament and also appoint the military services chiefs as well as the chairman of the National Security Council.
Caretaker Prime Minister Muhammadmian Soomro, members of his cabinet, military services chiefs, Supreme Court judges, senior bureaucrats and foreign envoys and representatives from the world of showbiz were present at the ceremony.
Despite the state of emergency, which he imposed as army chief Nov 3 by suspending the constitution, an action that has sparked widespread condemnation, Musharraf took oath under the 1973 constitution.
The audience cheered him and clapped as he signed the official document after taking oath. The ceremony was conducted with the same pomp seen a day earlier when Musharraf bid farewell to the army, handing over the chief’s traditional baton to his chosen successor, General Ashfaq Pervez Kiyani.
In his speech, Musharraf charged elements within the judiciary under Iftikhar Chaudhry, the sacked chief justice of the Supreme Court, with trying “to derail the third stage of democratic transition”.
General elections would go ahead as scheduled Jan 8, he said, noting the return of exiled opposition leaders Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto to the country. “I personally feel this is good for political reconciliation.”
But leading political parties rejected Musharraf’s swearing in as civilian president, saying his future will be determined by a new parliament that comes up after the January polls.
“The new parliament will determine his future, he will have to take confidence of the new parliament,” Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) spokesman Farhatullah Babar told IANS.
Jamaat-e-Islami leader Qazi Hussain Ahmed said in Lahore that Msuharraf’s oath taking was unconstitutional and “we reject him as president”.
Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League also dismissed the swearing in as illegal and unconstitutional. “We do not accept him as constitutional president,” a spokesman said.
In a related development, Sharif told an Indian newsmagazine that he had no power-sharing deal with Musharraf and stressed that the elections will lack any credibility unless the sacked Supreme Court judges were reinstated.
Sharif also urged India to shun the Pakistani military regime and wait for the restoration of democracy.
“India should wait and see and move when we have democracy back in Pakistan,” he told India Today. “It will be better that democracy talks to democracy rather than to dictatorship.”
The president also restated his commitment to the fight against terrorism.
“We have to defeat terrorism. There is no choice,” said Musharraf, who became a key US ally in the region after the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington on Sep 11, 2001.
But in closing comments, he criticised the West for demanding too much and too soon from Pakistan.
Musharraf said the developed world had an “unrealistic and maybe impractical obsession” with its form of democracy.
“We want democracy. I’m for democracy. We want human rights. We want civil liberties, but we will do it our way,” he said to loud applause. “… We understand our society, our environment, better than anyone in the West.”
His resignation as army chief fulfilled a demand by the opposition and other countries that he could not continue as both the head of the government and the military. Another demand was the lifting of the state of emergency.
But already questions are being asked if Musharraf can survive for five years. Since the death of then military ruler General Zia ul Haq, no civilian president has completed a five-year term despite having powers to dissolve parliament.
Meanwhile, at least five Pakistani soldiers were killed in a bomb attack on a convoy of security forces in the North Waziristan tribal region Thursday, local TV channels reported.