Faced with this situation at the international front and cautious resentment at home, Musharraf repeatedly announced his firm resolve ‘to pave the way for democracy’ as soon as possible. Musharraf announced a seven point agenda i.e. Rebuilding national confidence and morale; Strengthening the federation; Removal of inter-provincial disharmony and Restoration of national cohesion; Reviving the economy and Restoration of investors’ confidence; Ensuring law and order and dispensing speedy justice; Depoliticizing the state institutions; Devolution of power to the grass roots level; and Ensuring swift and across the broad accountability.
However, the harsh Western criticism of Musharraf dissipated in thin air overnight when he readily agreed to become an ally of the U.S.A after the terrorist attacks of 9/11 attributed to Al-Qaida in Afghanistan that altered the stakes for the West in the region, particularly Afghanistan. This came as a welcome respite for Musharraf and he willingly joined the Western Alliance in the war on terror in Afghanistan. This won Musharraf much-needed international legitimacy and support for his rule.
Pakistan allowed the United States and allied nations to use its air and ground routes as well as bases to stage the military action against landlocked Afghanistan and Taliban whom Pakistan had supported both during the Jihad against the Soviet Union and afterwards as well. Musharraf also allowed the U.S.A and its Western allies to transport supplies to thousands of Afghanistan-based international troops in the ensuing years.
The negative impact on Pakistan’s external and internal security and the pros and cons of this policy are still a point of contentious debate in Pakistan. The horrors of malicious terror attacks perpetrated against both Pakistani military and civilians by terrorists in Afghanistan and their supporters in Pakistan is a tragic part of our history. The ingress and influence of the fundamentalist tendencies in our society will take decades or may be centuries to wipe out. The loss of hundreds of billions of dollars to Pakistan in terms of lost trade, tourism and industry is colossal. Damage to the image of Pakistan is immeasurable. Whether this was avoidable is for history to judge.
On the internal front, as chief executive, Musharraf arrogated total power to himself. Although the constitution was not abrogated, it was held in “abeyance”. Musharraf was therefore, always eager to point out that martial law had not been imposed. He, nevertheless, insisted the country could not afford to propagate the old politics.
Musharraf’s announced intent was to return Pakistan to civilian rule as soon as feasible.
The Chief Executive Secretariat was remodelled to give him more administrative powers. Serving military officers assumed most important positions in government while massive induction of serving military officers in the secretariat also provided Musharraf support of the civilian governance structure. However, lack of experience in civil affairs of these inducted military officers caused the nation irreparable damage. The full negative impact of this policy will slowly reveal itself.
As was the case in previous military governments, Musharraf’s announced intent was to return Pakistan to civilian rule as soon as feasible. This meant an indefinite period as it was repeatedly drummed in that civilian rule had fragmented, and a return to full civilian control first required the establishment of local democracy, hearkening back to Ayub Khan’s “basic democracies”, a system devoid of competitive political parties.
It is evident, that this system owed its existence to a pliable civilian government and a docile parliament; apparently civilian institutions and effective local governments on grassroots level. In fact those institutions were functioning with the help of military support instead of the citizenry’s support and were only acceptable as long as they were submissive to the military ruler. Reforms adopted for good governance and transparent accountability hid many other motives contrary to his apparent tall claims propagated in populist phraseology.
The new system gave enough powers to elected nazims at the cost of bureaucracy as well as the provincial and national level politicians. The weakness of the bureaucracy by eliminating the post of deputy commissioner and failure in implementing Police Order 2002 caused further decline in service delivery and governance. This situation decreased the ability of good governance. According to some critics, these reforms boosted the politics of identity and further encouraged patronage as was done in Zia-ul-Haq’s regime. The politics of thana-kachehry stretched to provincial and national level from the local bodies. Local administration was further politicized; already weak institutions became more vulnerable. The subordination of the bureaucracy and abolishment of the old magistracy system caused much harm and a gap in the working relationship between the bureaucrats and elected representatives
When legality of the coup was challenged in the Supreme Court of Pakistan in January 2000, General Musharraf imposed Oath of Office for Judges and orders were passed to take new oath or quit the post. This ensured that the judges who resigned could be replaced by compliant and docile judges as we saw in the judgments passed by them. The Supreme Court through various petitions validated the military takeover on the base of ‘Doctrine of State Necessity.’ This severely affected the unconditional respect and support of the supreme judiciary in the public.
Similarly restructuring of the Ehtesab Commission into National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has continuously been a source of division and misuse by both the military and democratic dispensations. Under the pretext of accountability, opposing and non-compliant political leaderships, bureaucrats and businessmen were harassed, arrested and penalized. In hindsight, NAB has become a controversial institution and a source of division rather than an institution for cleansing the society of genuine corruption.
One of the most ridiculous decisions of Musharraf was the referendum to secure the powers of the President. As he did not have a Prime Minister for a long time, he usurped the powers of the PM and became a powerful President while still in uniform and serving as the Army Chief. The judiciary again allowed Musharraf to retain the two posts. The first aim of this move was to promulgate the Legal Framework Order (LFO) 2002 whereby he got the authority to amend the constitution and dissolve assemblies, appoint governors, commanders of armed forces, and members of National Security Council, etc. The seats in Parliament were increased to 342 and the most important article of LFO was to allow Musharraf to continue as President in uniform.
Gen. Musharraf’s strategy of “enlightened moderation”—that was aimed at eliminating the conditions that breed extremism and terrorism, restore Pakistan’s tattered reputation as a leading moderate, Islamic state also failed to deliver although the strategy was accompanied by raids against suspected Islamic extremists.
It can be argued that Musharraf tried to give priority to education by allocating a huge budget for the HEC. However, on closer examination one realizes that this was done by massively slashing the budgets for primary and secondary education. One wonders what kind of PhDs would be produced if the system of basic level of education was being sacrificed. How can you build a strong edifice on weak foundations? The impact of that flawed policy is now painfully evident in the degrading standard of students being produced by the state academic institutions.
It is true that from 2002 to 2007 economy registered growth and stability but that also needs to be taken with a pinch of salt as after 9/11 there was a rumour that foreign assets of Pakistanis will be frozen/ expropriated by the Western governments. Consequently, billions of dollars of undocumented/ corruption money was sent back by the Pakistanis from abroad, to the extent that due to excess liquidity interest rates at one time fell to 2%~3%. Also, the US government provided billions of dollars in military and other aid to finance the Afghan war. This supported the FX reserves and the economy. Professionals/ technocrats like you, Shaukat Aziz, Dr. Ishrat did a good job on building on this opportunity. Economic growth, exports, FDI, etc, improved. It’s a different matter that the war later cost Pakistan $120 billion in economic costs, over 80,000 people killed, and religious extremism grew exponentially.
One still feels that it is too early to close the balance sheet on the Musharraf era. We would have to wait a long time before we can make a definitive judgment. 
Gen. Musharraf seized political power in October 1999 in a bloodless coup by overthrowing democratically elected Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and became the Chief Executive of the country. Later Musharraf declared himself president and went on to rule Pakistan till 2008 when his political allies lost the general elections, forcing him to step down to avoid impeachment by the new parliament. He was tried for treason and given the death penalty. However, in 2020, the High Court overturned the death sentence, dismissing the legal process against him as unconstitutional and cancelled the death penalty.
The writer served as Ambassador of Pakistan to China, European Union, Belgium, Luxembourg and Ireland, from 1993 to 2020. She is Vice Chairperson of Board of Governors of Council on Global Policy (CGP) and can be reached at naghmanahashmi40@gmail.com
Nadira Panjwani
Despite the turmoil that engulfed our region post 9/11, General Musharraf’s strong leadership steered the country through difficult times. The hallmarks of his era were women empowerment, freedom of the media and economic development of Pakistan. He was a poor judge of character and surrounded himself with opportunists who eventually brought his downfall.
Brig Agha Ahmad Gul
I met Lt. Col. Pervez Musharraf for the first time in 1980 when he was an Instructor at the Command & Staff College, Quetta and I, a student as Major.
On one occasion, I disagreed with the Cabinet’s decision to raise the tariff for agriculture tube wells in Balochistan. After some 50 minutes’ arguments, he gave in and reversed the Federal Cabinet’s decision. He gave unprecedented freedom to the media in Pakistan. At a SAARC meeting (in Khatmandu), he unexpectedly walked up and shook hands with a rather startled Vajpayee, and put in sincere efforts to peacefully settle the lingering conflicts with India.
General Pervez Musharraf’s strengths are many. He is honest, upright, untiring, understanding, open to reasoning, trusting, generous, fearless, bordering on audaciousness, optimistic and a patriot par excellence who gave the slogan, ‘Pakistan First’. The greatest appreciation for him I find in some of our tribal, simple, poor old people who to this day remember his rule as a golden period. They get a shine in their old eyes, start smiling and I notice them admiring his rule and persona with enthusiasm. I feel the dustbin of history will catch his weaknesses but memories of his accomplishments will live on.