In Pakistan, it's 'open season for Musharraf-bashing'
From his fruit stand not far from the entrance to Pakistan's sprawling military headquarters, vendor Ismail Iqbal sometimes sees President Pervez Musharraf's motorcade sweep past, all swoosh and speed and tinted windows.
And every time, he says, it infuriates him.
"Big man," he said scornfully. "Big car. Big house. And for what?"
More than three months after his party's decisive defeat in national elections, Musharraf remains a lightning rod for the resentments of many ordinary Pakistanis.
His foes clamor for his ouster. Newspapers editorialize against him. Old rivals publicly mock him. Last week, he was compelled to deny rumors that the new ruling coalition, with the support of senior army generals, had extracted from him a pledge to step down soon.
"It's really open season for Musharraf-bashing," said Rasul Baksh Rais, a Lahore-based political analyst and professor.
Even visiting lawmakers from the United States, Musharraf's biggest backer, are speaking openly of what a mistake it was in years past to build America's Pakistan policy around one man. But despite diminished powers and a ravaged reputation, the 64-year-old Musharraf, the consummate political survivor, has managed to cling to some semblance of his former life.
He makes official trips to foreign capitals. He receives visiting dignitaries. He still lives in the spacious home reserved for the head of the military, a position he relinquished under pressure late last year. And although Pakistan's parliament within weeks could take up a package of constitutional reforms expressly intended to curtail his remaining authority, he still wields enough power to make the country's new rulers nervous.
As president, he technically has the ability to dismiss the government and dissolve the parliament. He appoints provincial governors, who in turn dispense patronage in return for loyalty. He retains the support of many in Pakistan's powerful and change-averse bureaucracy.
Musharraf has said he intends to serve out the five-year term he won last fall from the previous rubber-stamp legislature. His rivals say the vote was legally invalid because he was still army chief at the time. The new parliament could impeach him but that would require a two-thirds majority in both houses, and the government coalition does not have that level of strength.
