The Dealmaking General
Former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has granted a slew of media interviews claiming that Here is the first paragraph of the FT story: General Pervez Musharraf has reached an agreement with exiled opposition leader Benazir Bhutto under which he will resign as military chief in exchange for her party’s support for his re-election as president. Read story
Steve's comment: According to the news accounts, Bhutto, who was twice prime minister before being forced to leave the country following Musharraf's 1999 coup, squeezed several key concessions from Musharraf: The constitution would be changed so she could run for prime minister again; corruption charges would be dropped against her and some of her political followers; and he would step down by the end of the year as chief of the Army.According to Bhutto, the idea is that Musharraf would then be free to run again for a five-year term for elections expected next month.
No one is defending Musharraf from criticism -- he has plenty to apologize for in terms of his performance in office. But his dealmaking is cynical to the extreme in his effort to retain political power.
Quite apart from Bhutto's competence, the problem with his horse-trading is that the Supreme Court has agreed to allow the country's other exiled former two-time prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, to return home.
And Musharraf apparently hasn't included Sharif in the deal. So expect more political turmoil among politicians with absolutely no respect for the person in office -- unless it happens to be they themselves. Here is Zahid Hussain's take on the topic.
3 Comments:
Steve: Why do you blog so much about Pakistan? Whatever happens in that country is not going to have a significant direct impact on Central Asia. There are no significant ties or economic/political dependencies between them.
Meanwhile:
Do you know why the Kazakh oil company would be buying a Romanian one (and acquire in the process lots of gas stations)? Is it important for an oil company to own gas stations?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6966000.stm
RFE/RL is talking about "simmering insurgency" in the Caucasus: http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2007/08/2ab43bb9-ec96-4072-8eb0-f1bc7757cedc.html
Do you think the growing bellicose nationalism and even neo-fascism and xeonophobia in Russia would fuel nationalist sentiment among the ethnic groups in Russia (Tatarstan, the Caucasus)?
Hi Eric, Kazakhstan's successful acquisition in Romania is part of grabbing the whole oil income stream -- the crude profit, the substantial refining profit, and the retail profit.
It's a trend among the petro-states (look at Saudi, Kuwait and Qatar for instance). Kazakhstan doesn't want to merely sell its oil at the port. It wants to be the equivalent of an integrated major. Romania is the first step (it's tried several times to get into Europe; now that it's got its foot in the door, expect more such deals).
Regarding the northern Caucasus, there is deep-seated hostility in the various republics over many factors, along with instability, with reports of violence as you've seen in Ingushetia, Dagestan and Chechnya. There's already quite a bit of traditional nationalism in these republics, however, and it would be difficult I'd say to accurately measure an uptick in response to the nationalism in Moscow. Comment from other readers?
As for why Pakistan -- that is one of the self-absorbed factors of blogging. I'm interested in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Thanks for the note and best, Steve
I believe Tatarstan, mentioned earlier by Eric, is not party to the zenophobic or nationalist rhetoric happening in the rest of Russia. They already have great autonomy (like Scotland, for example) and the Russians/Tatars both live next to each other in an otherwise peaceful way (like Kazakhs and Russians in Almaty). Tatars already want their own independence but are at least going through with it in legal ways. I remember their quite sitdown protests all night back in '91 during the USSR days...I think they will keep calm as there is too much to lose, and the Russians will not become too riotist in this region for fear of the Tatars getting restless within mother Russia.
As for Pakistan/Afghanistan news, I believe this is another forte for Steve so it makes sense there is a mixture on this site. I am sure things still stay mostly Central Asian but some newsworthy posts like this one today are still interesting for me to read.
--Vincent
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home