Via the BBC: Musharraf appoints army successor

Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf has named his successor to take over as army chief, the military says.

The appointee is former head of intelligence Lt Gen Ashfaq Pervez Kiani, military spokesman Maj Gen Waheed Arshad told the BBC.

Gen Musharraf will resign as head of the army if he wins presidential elections on Saturday, his lawyers say.

This whole power play by Musharraf is classic stuff for an authoritarian ruler, insofar as there is an implicit threat in the process: either legitimize him or he will retain the power that he used to seize the government in the first place. In other words, he is presenting Pakistan with the choice of a continuation of the status quo, or a slow transition to a new political arrangement, but only on Musharraf’s terms.

The timetable for Musharraf’s transition from military chieftain to civilian president remains a bit vague:

Lt Gen Kiani has been appointed deputy chief of army staff and will take over the top post when it falls vacant, the military says.

It is not clear when that will be.

Gen Musharraf’s lawyers told the Supreme Court last week that he would stand down as army chief “soon after election and before taking the oath of office as president”.

Many opposition parties claim that Musharraf’s candidacy is illegal as long as he remains head of the army. Their protestations (and boycott) will likely come to naught. Interestingly, Benazir Bhutto’s party, the Pakistan People’s Party, is not participating in the boycott, and theirs in the largest party in the country. This suggests that the deal that Musharraf and Bhutto have allegedly struck is on track.