November 30, 2004 ☼ Foreign Affairs
This is an archived blog post from The Acorn.
Lots of runs coming of Musharraf’s bat this season — the latest one is setting off for Latin America, leaving a figurehead acting president to sign the all important uniform bill.
The interesting thing in the entire trajectory is that so far, at no point, has General Musharraf himself made any direct or formal announcement that he has decided to retain both offices. The entire work has been done for him, through a political process, by his handpicked political government. He is currently touring South America and the Senate chairman, Mr Soomro, is the acting president. If the bill is signed by Mr Soomro, then we shall conclude that General Musharraf has successfully orchestrated the entire process without at any point getting his own hands dirty.
The government is also trying to keep the date of despatch of the bill to the Presidency secret. The Senate passed it on November 1. The president, according to Article 75 (1), is required to sign it within thirty days after the bill is presented to him. However, given that the bill has to be signed into law before December 31, if it has not already been sent to the presidency by the Senate secretariat, by today, it must be so sent. General Musharraf will be back in the second week of December. If the pattern he has exhibited so far, using the civilians’ political shoulder to fire his shot, is taken to its logical end then we could see Mr Soomro sign the bill into law.
That is clever by half. Technically, of course, General Musharraf will try and absolve himself of the responsibility by claiming that at no stage did he personally contribute to the process. But let’s face it. History is not going to judge this verdict on legal technicalities. It is the politics behind it that counts. [Daily Times]As clever tricks go, this is as good as his previous ones, but one really wonders why he even bothers to go through these contortions? Just who does he think he is fooling?
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