Pervez PervMusharraf
... former dictator of Pakistain, who was less dictatorial and corrupt than any Pak civilian government to date ...
said in an interview with BBC Urdu on Wednesday, during which he lauded former military dictators.
"Dictators set the country right, whereas civilian governments brought it to ruins," he said, claiming that "military rule always brought progress to Pakistain".
The former president added that whenever a martial law was declared in Pakistain, "it was the need of the hour".
"All Asian countries have seen progress because of dictators," he said, adding that it makes no difference to the population of Pakistain whether the country is being governed by an elected government or by an autocrat, as long as there is progress and prosperity.
"What is the point of holding elections and giving liberty [to the population], if the country does not see progress?" he was quoted as saying.
During the interview, Musharraf lauded the rules of former military dictators Field Marshal Ayub Khan and Gen Zia ul Haq
...the creepy-looking former dictator of Pakistain. Zia was an Islamic nutball who imposed his nutballery on the rest of the country with the enthusiastic assistance of the nation's religious parties, which are populated by other nutballs. He was appointed Chief of Army Staff in 1976 by Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, whom he hanged when he seized power. His time in office was a period of repression, with hundreds of thousands of political rivals, minorities, and journalists executed or tortured, including senior general officers convicted in coup-d'état plots, who would normally be above the law. As part of his alliance with the religious parties, his government helped run the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan, providing safe havens, American equipiment, Saudi money, and Pak handlers to selected mujaheddin. Zia died along with several of his top generals and admirals and the then United States Ambassador to Pakistain Arnold Lewis Raphel when he was assassinated in a suspicious air crash near Bahawalpur in 1988...Holding the Bhutto era responsible for "breaking the country", he said Ayub Khan had "set a record of progress in the country."
Commenting on the rule of Gen Zia, Musharraf -- while accepting that it was "controversial" -- maintained that the former dictator's decision to help America and the mujahideen against the Soviet Union at the time of the Afghanistan invasion was a correct move.
Musharraf also spoke about his 1999 coup d'état in which he seized power from the democratically-elected government of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif
... served two non-consecutive terms as prime minister, heads the Pakistain Moslem League (Nawaz). Noted for his spectacular corruption, the 1998 Pak nuclear test, border war with India, and for being tossed by General Musharraf...
He said, "The coup was staged because it was the demand of the country's people".
Musharraf added that Pakistain's citizens should have the option of to remove a civilian government and there should be "checks and balances in the Constitution" to this effect.