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Power Play in Pakistan

Musharraf Is Sworn In as a Civilian President

By Carlotta Gall and Jane Perlez in Islamabad

Pervez Musharraf was sworn in as a civilian president today, but is left with vastly reduced powers.

A day after resigning as army chief, Pervez Musharraf was sworn in as a civilian president today. He is left with vastly reduced powers and Washington has a far more complex Pakistan to deal with in its fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

Bowing reluctantly to pressure at home and abroad, Mr. Musharraf, 64, relinquished his military role in a somber ceremony on Wednesday, ending eight years of military rule. He turned over control of the army to Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, 55, a former head of Pakistan’s premier intelligence agency, Inter-Services Intelligence.

The move set up the potential of competing power centers in Pakistan, with an army chief separate from the president and the recent return from exile of the country’s two main opposition leaders. That is likely to complicate Bush administration antiterrorism policy here, something officials in Washington were hoping to avoid, and one reason they supported Mr. Musharraf for so long.

Senior army commanders grumbled increasingly in recent months that Mr. Musharraf was so engrossed in his own political survival that he had become distracted from battling the country’s spreading insurgency, Western military officials said.

Though finally stepping down as army chief, he is likely to retain much of his old power as a civilian president, fortified by his emergency decree on Nov. 3, and loyalists he chose at the top of the military, according to Pakistani officials and analysts.

But in fairly short order, Mr. Musharraf, who plunged the nation into political turmoil with his emergency decree and has been a sometimes frustrating partner in Washington’s fight against terrorism, will become a diminished figure, they said, a civilian president in a country where traditionally the power lies with an elected prime minister, or the military chiefs who have overthrown them. Mr. Musharraf came to power in such a coup.

Though General Kayani is considered loyal to the president, the real levers of power will pass to him, and he is believed to favor removing the army from the center of politics, they said. “Kayani is loyal to Musharraf, but also to Pakistan,” one Western military official said.

And as much as Washington has supported Mr. Musharraf, having a chief of the army on the job full time is a change likely to be welcomed. Bush administration officials have already praised General Kayani as someone they can work with.

General Kayani, an infantry commander and a graduate of the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas, which he attended in 1987 and 1988, has been described by Western diplomats and military officials as well liked and by far Pakistan’s most capable commander.

He has already played a prominent role in cooperating with the United States. He was promoted to full general and made vice chief of Army Staff in October. He immediately visited units serving on the front lines in Pakistan’s tribal areas, and said that sorting out the difficulties plaguing western Pakistan was a priority, a Western military official said.

Even with his new oath of office, Mr. Musharraf will confront considerable political challenges. Before giving up his army post, he transferred the power to lift the de facto martial law to the presidency in a decree last week, and so any decision to lift it remains firmly in his hands.

He continues under intense pressure to rescind the decree he used to suspend the Constitution and appoint a new Supreme Court. The decree has been criticized by opponents and Western diplomats as a blatant move to have his recent election as president confirmed.

Mr. Musharraf is also under pressure to free the senior lawyers and judges who declared his emergency decree illegal and remain under house arrest. Once freed, they are likely to resume their campaign against him.

Not least, with parliamentary elections set for Jan. 8, he will also have to deal with two political opponents who are freshly back from exile, the former prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, the man he overthrew in a coup in 1999.

Both politicians have called for Mr. Musharraf’s resignation and for changes in the Constitution to curb the president’s powers over Parliament. As leaders of Pakistan’s largest political parties, either could head the next government as prime minister, perpetuating their power struggles with Mr. Musharraf as president.

While the military under General Kayani is likely to support Mr. Musharraf as president, it is unlikely to intervene to save him in further political tests of will, said a former general and political analyst, Talat Masood.