Musharraf prepares to leave military and be civilian leader
RAWALPINDI, Pakistan -- Stiff and unsmiling as befits his expiring rank, Gen. Pervez Musharraf strode slowly past an honor guard of Pakistani troops Tuesday, bidding a solemn farewell to the forces he sent into the U.S.-led war against terrorism.
The president is due to hand over command of one of the world's largest armies to a hand-picked successor on Wednesday, restoring Pakistan to civilian rule.
That means saying goodbye to the army he joined in 1964 -- a force that helped him dominate this Muslim nation of 160 million people throughout the eight years since he seized power in a bloodless coup.
It also casts him into uncertain waters, with rivals snapping at his heels and the militants he has sworn to fight after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States contesting ever more of his country's territory along the Afghan border.
Opponents are welcoming Musharraf's belated conversion to civilian rule and on Tuesday appeared to ease off on a threat to boycott January's parliamentary elections.
Nawaz Sharif, the prime minister Musharraf ousted in 1999, kept up his rhetoric against the general, insisting that he undo steps taken under a state of emergency imposed to prolong his rule.
Still, Sharif said Musharraf's conversion to civilian president will make "a lot of difference" and that he would only refuse to participate in the vote if all opposition parties agreed to do so as well.
Musharraf faces increasingly adamant calls from critics at home and abroad to lift the emergency imposed Nov. 3 and make good on a long-standing pledge to restore civilian rule.
To calm the turmoil, he has released thousands of opponents rounded up under his extraordinary powers and let all but one of Pakistan's independent news channels go back on the air.
On Tuesday he took the first visible steps toward ending his stranglehold on power.
A guard of honor of about 150 army, navy and air force troops stood at attention as Musharraf arrived at the colonial-style army headquarters in the garrison city of Rawalpindi.
A military band played the national anthem as Musharraf, wearing gold-rimmed spectacles, a green-and-white sash across his uniform and more than a dozen medals on his chest, inspected the troops on a small parade ground.
He held a brief closed-door meeting with other top army commanders, then traveled to the headquarters of the navy and air force in the nearby capital, Islamabad, for more farewell salutes and handshakes.
Musharraf made no comment to reporters allowed to watch and film some of the events.
Musharraf insists his continued rule as president is essential for Pakistan to remain stable as it reverts to democracy.
To secure his position, Musharraf has abrogated the constitution and purged the Supreme Court, which was about to rule on the legality of his victory in a presidential election held in October.
Pliant judges in the retooled court last week dismissed opposition complaints that Musharraf's retention of his military role disqualified him from running for elected office.
That maneuver and the crackdown on dissent has dealt a blow to his relations with Benazir Bhutto, another former prime minister who has returned from exile and who shares his secularist, pro-Western views.
Bhutto, who has twice been put under house arrest to stop her leading protests, has joined Sharif in denouncing Musharraf's backsliding on democracy.
However, she and Sharif are also fierce political rivals, and there are doubts that they can forge a united front to force Musharraf out completely.
Bhutto says she is reluctant to leave the field open to pro-government parties and her spokesman said Tuesday that she would applaud if Musharraf finally makes good on an oft-delayed pledge to leave the army.
"Let us see what happens tomorrow because he has reneged on his promise in the past," Farhatullah Babar said.
Musharraf is to appear in uniform for the last time Wednesday as he hands over his command to Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, a former chief of the powerful ISI intelligence service.
Kayani is widely expected to maintain the army's pro-Western policies even as he tries to repair the image of a force damaged by its direct involvement in politics.
An official insisted Tuesday that Musharraf's switch would bring no change in resolve against terrorism.
"Uniform or no uniform, it would not impact our war on terror," Interior Ministry spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema said.
Sharif, who returned from exile in Saudi Arabia Sunday, went on CNN in September to calm doubts about his own commitment to battling the Taliban and al-Qaida.
"You can't fight terror the way Mr. Musharraf is fighting," he said at the time, adding that the Pakistani leader "needs the threat of terror for his own survival. We will fight out of conviction."
But Sharif, a conservative with good relations with Pakistan's religious parties, is now reaching out to the many Pakistanis who disagree with sending the army to fight militants along the Afghan border and who deride Musharraf as a U.S. stooge. Civilians as well as militant have died in those operations and occasional U.S. missiles strikes on targets inside Pakistan.
"If the outside world declares somebody a terrorist, we shall not act on it blindly," Sharif told reporters at the Press Club in his home city of Lahore. "We are against extremism and terrorism. But it doesn't mean to allow foreign countries to bomb our people."
That posture could entice some votes away from Bhutto, who has said she might let U.S. troops strike at Osama bin Laden if the al-Qaida leader is found to be hiding in Pakistan.
It remains unclear whether Sharif can assemble a slate of candidates strong enough to challenge the pro-Musharraf ruling party or Bhutto's party in January.
Still, a day after filing his nomination papers, Sharif gave the strongest hint yet that he would actually take part.
"If all political parties agree, I think we should boycott the polls because it is a lethal weapon," Sharif said. "But if we don't get an agreement we should try to reach our objectives in the polls."
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Associated Press writers Sadaqat Jan in Islamabad and Zarar Khan in Lahore contributed to this report.