Pakistan is today dangling between hope and despair, propelled largely by President Pervez Musharraf’s inability, and refusal, to gauge public sentiments for free and fair elections in the coming months.
Discontentment, once confined to media and courtrooms, has spilled out into the streets, creating a stifling atmosphere of anxiety and doubt across the country. Political, economic and social differences have sharpened in the past eight years. Religious extremism has expanded its base in areas which were hitherto untouched by fundamentalism. Public trust in the military has dwindled alarmingly.
In today’s Pakistan, there are more questions than answers. One of the questions which is increasingly being asked within, and outside, Pakistan is whether the Pakistan Army, more specifically its chief, Pervez Musharraf, continues to enjoy as much public support as it (he) did in October 1999 when it (he) was hailed as the country’s savior. An answer to this question will have a telling impact on what happens in Pakistan in the next few months. The difficulty is that given the manner in which the Pakistani military has functioned as a closed-door club, there cannot be a confident response to the most important question in Pakistan today.
This report is a summary of a round-table discussion on the current situation in Pakistan organised by Observer Research Foundation on August 10, 2007.
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