At long last President Musharraf has taken off his military uniform to occupy the presidency-for the second term as a civilian head of state. Though belated and preceded by unkept promises it is indeed a welcome development. It has taken more than eight years for General (R) Musharraf who toppled an elected government in October 1999 to seize power in a bloodless coup, to willy-nilly give up his job as Army Chief and come to terms with the imperative of civilianising himself. Better late than never is the moral of the story, even though critics believe he could have done a good turn to his impaired image had he condescended to switching of roles much earlier. Observers were intrigued by his insistence to indefinitely keep two jobs, despite loud noises at home and abroad asking him to relinquish his army post. He would never keep his word, cynics insisted, despite his formal communication to the Supreme Court that he would quit his army job before taking oath for his second presidential term. Anyhow the transition from ‘General’ to Mr Musharraf has taken place and the momentous change marks a landmark development in the country’s power politics.

Now that President Musharraf has against all odds managed to win a second term in office and is on the face of it secure in the Presidency for another five years, it is time for him to outgrow his partisan linkages. It would do immense good to his image if he were to stop projecting himself as a ‘godfather’ of the King’s party. Gone are the days when one could afford to say in public rallies, ‘if you support my policies you should vote for them’. Although a ‘caretaker administration’ has been installed, the ultimate responsibility of holding ‘free, fair and transparent’ polls is that of the president himself, and he should henceforth be seen as acting as a ‘neutral umpire’. Among his priority tasks should be to take all such measures, which are seen, as necessary to let a level playing field to all the participants in the elections. That all the political parties are given an equal opportunity to reach the electorate and project their election agenda is a pre-condition for lending credibility to role of a ‘neutral umpire’ overseeing the contest. And the caretaker administration should be told that all political detainees should be released across the board and the curbs on the media should be withdrawn before the election campaign gets going. The transition phase up to the formation of the next government is of crucial significance if adherence to any rules of the power game is sought and President Musharraf, needless to say, would be the key player in the process.

President Musharraf has yet to go a long way till the polls are held and the next government is installed in office, to demonstrate what sort of President he would turn out to be in a civilian attire. Will he follow the GIK model and not let the Prime Minister function as the real Chief Executive, or more amenable to power sharing by consensus. To his critics he had always said that he believed in a gradual transition from military rule to a democratic order. And he had himself categorised his stepping down as Army Chief as the beginning of the last phase towards the establishment of true democracy. If he lives up to his promise his taking off the uniform to become a civilian president should be more meaningful than a cosmetic change. And he should sincerely accept the political reality that he is henceforth required to deal with a bona fide chief executive and not a dummy prime minister. Notwithstanding the crucial powers he still retains under Article 58(2b), he would not act in a manner, which could end up in destabilising the political system. The idea of a ‘phased and gradual transition to democracy’ is above all Musharraf’s baby and thus the onus of the preserving the ‘new born’ democratic order is primarily on him.

Does the installation of Mr Musharraf as civilian president also imply the end of Army’s involvement in politics? In response to the oppositions persistent demand that the army should be sent back to barracks, he was rather evasive as he refused to acknowledge that the Army had a hand in running the government. Nevertheless, there have been charges of ‘men-in-Khaki’ being everywhere grabbling the lion’s share of key positions. And although President Musharraf has now formally severed his ties with the army, he would still be seen as the ‘saint patron’ of the retired generals vying for lucrative jobs. President Musharraf may continue to cater for his ‘primary constituency’, but if he wishes the infantile democratic system to succeed he will also have to initiate a process to establish the principle of the civil-military oligarchy’s subordination to democratically elected political government.