OPINION: No hopes for Pervez Musharraf to fulfill his dreams

Prevez Musharraf (69), former President of Pakistan, who was once powerful military dictator on Thursday fled from Islamabad High Court in his bullet-proof SUV to his tightly guarded farm house, 17 KM from Islamabad, after the dismissal of interim bail extension by the court in case related to the detention of 60 senior judges including the Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Choudhary after he declared emergency and suspended the constitution, in 2007.

Musharaff had seized power in a coup in 1999 and ruled the country for nine years faces the death penalty or life in prison if convicted of betraying his own country.

The move fuelled a nationwide lawyer’s protest movement that forced Musharaf to resign under the impeachment threat. But the federal government had to file charges against him.  A lawyer had filed the petition accusing Musharraf of treason. The rejection of his bail was the second setback to the former ruler.  Musharraf had returned from four-year self-imposed exile last month hoping to revive his political career, by participating in the Parliament election scheduled for May 11.

In fact, Musharraf had come back to Pakistan that the people of Pakistan would accept him in lieu of Pakistan Peoples Party and Muslim League (Nawaz Sharif) and was hopeful to be successful in Pakistan politics as the people might have forgotten as to what has happened in the past because of short-memory but the judiciary has created a big problem for him by rejecting his bail.

In view of the existing relations between the Musharraf and Judiciary, Musharraf is not likely to get any relief and the only alternative is that Army should support him being a former General.  Pak Army does not seem to be bothered about the political career of Musharraf but would not like that its former General spend the rest of his life behind the bars. 

There are possibilities that Pak Army secretly may pressurise the judiciary to come out with a solution to save the former General, which could save the image of both Army and Judiciary.  But the problem of Pak Army is that it cannot interfere in the affairs of Parliament, Administration and Judiciary, of today’s Pakistan. 

Musharraf could take the shelter of Supreme Court and there are less chances that Musharraf may spend bonus part of his life in house-arrest at his farm-house but there is no hope to fulfill his dreams of any political career in Pakistan for which he has come back to his country.

(Disclaimer: The views expressed by the author in this article are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of City Air News.)