Pakistani president General Pervez Musharraf resigns

18 August 2008

Islamabad: Pakistani president, retired general Pervez Musharraf, announced his decision to resign in a televised address to the nation this afternoon. His resignation comes after a threat of impeachment from the country's national and state legislatures. It also comes nine years after he seized power  in a bloodless coup in 1999.

The two biggest victims of the Pakistan Army's whimsical ways of seizing power and ruling the country, the Pakistan People's Party and the Pakistan Muslim League (N), are today part of a coalition that rules the country. Both the parties demanded his resignation, threatening to launch impeachment proceedings if he failed to oblige.

With Gen Musharraf showing no inclinations to resign, one state legislature after another began passing resolutions in favour of impeachment compelling the general to read the writing on the wall.

If launched, the impeachment proceedings would have been the first in the 61-year history of Pakistan. "After viewing the situation and consulting legal advisers and poltical allies, with their advice I have decided to resign," said Musharraf. "I leave my future in the hands of people," he announced.

Musharraf made a lengthy defence of his time in power and said, "Not a single charge in the impeachment can stand against me," Musharraf said. "No charge can be proved against me because I never did anything for myself, it was all for Pakistan."

He claimed that law and order now prevailed in the country, human rights and democracy had improved and that Pakistan was now an important country internationally. "On the map of the world, Pakistan is now an important country, by the grace of Allah," he said.