 | Time for a Rantburg opinion poll, and remember, death is not an option: pick the date Perv is ousted. |
MULTAN, Pakistan - President Pervez Musharraf said Saturday that Pakistan’s powerful army was not ‘distancing’ itself from him following the defeat of his political allies in elections last month.
Musharraf said claims of a rift between him and the military were being spread by people trying to destabilise the nuclear-armed nation. ‘It is absolutely wrong that the army is distancing itself from me. There is no truth in it,’ Musharraf said at the inauguration of a state television station in the central city of Multan.
| "Oh Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up!" |
It was the second time in two days that Musharraf, a key ally in the US-led ‘war on terror,’ touched on his relations with the 600,000-strong military, which has ruled Pakistan for more than half of its 60-year existence.
| And he'll keep saying it, and he'll click his ruby-red slippers, all the time hoping it isn't true and knowing deep, deep down inside that he's toast ... |
On Friday Musharraf, who until then had kept a low profile since the elections, said that the army could not forget him. ‘It is my army, it is the army of Pakistan. It cannot forget me,’ state media quoted Musharraf as saying at an official function in the southern city of Jacobabad.
Musharraf’s remarks follow a statement by the new army chief, General Ashfaq Kayani, vowing full support to the elected government while saying that any split with the president was not in the country’s interest. The statement issued after a corps commanders meeting on Thursday said that Kayani ‘observed that an impression is being created about ‘distancing of the army from the president.’’
| Now why would he feel compelled to make a public comment about an observation of an impression? Heh ... |
Kayani ‘pointed out that any kind of schism, at any level, under the circumstances would not be in the larger interest of the nation,’ the statement said, adding that Kayani called for a ‘harmonised relationship between various pillars of the state.’
| Or else he'll just take over. It isn't like it hasn't been done before. |
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