Musharraf warns of national mismanagement

ISLAMABAD - President Pervez Musharraf has warned against the risks of mismanagement for a country lacking sound leaders, amid speculation he could step down and leave the new civilian leadership to run Pakistan.
Addressing an audience made up largely of military officers at the National Defence University late on Thursday, Musharraf spoke in broad terms, though previously he has made clear his disdain for the civilian leaders of Pakistan's main parties.
‘Mismanagement and lack of potential in the leadership will lead to a weakening of the country,’ said Musharraf, without specifying he was talking about Pakistan.
Musharraf, who came to power as a general following a coup in 1999, has cut an increasingly isolated figure since the parties supporting him were defeated in an election last February.
The United States has forged strong communications with General Ashfaq Kayani, who succeeded Musharraf as army chief in November, to preserve Pakistan's role as a crucial US ally in the war on terrorism.
The army has adopted a more constitutional role under Kayani, who held talks with US Admiral Michael Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, earlier this week.
Though generals have led Pakistan more than half the time since Pakistan was founded in 1947, analysts do not expect the army to intervene to keep its former chief in power.
Like the army, the United States does not want to see Musharraf humiliated, but it has also signalled it won't prop him up, according to a senior adviser to Asif Ali Zardari, whose Pakistan People's Party (PPP) leads the new government.
Western allies hope the new government will settle in, rather than risk further instability by letting Musharraf's anticipated departure turn nasty.
The PPP wants to ease Musharraf from power, while the party of Nawaz Sharif, the prime minister Musharraf overthrew, has made political capital out of calls for his usurper to be impeached or tried for treason.
The adviser to Zardari, the widower of assassinated former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, told Reuters that Musharraf was reconciled to resigning, and ways were being worked out to afford him a dignified exit, though the president's spokesman has issued denials Musharraf was planning to quit.
Multiple challenges
Pakistan faces major challenges, regardless of the uncertainties posed by Musharraf's position.
The new coalition inherited a rapidly deteriorating economic situation, in part due to mismanagement by a caretaker government Musharraf installed last November to oversee the run up to polls.
The government is due to announce a budget next Wednesday that will offer the poorest of Pakistan's 160 million people some protection from soaring food and fuel price, while also trying to bring down widening current account and fiscal deficits.
It is also seeking peace deals with tribal militants in the northwest, while trying to calm US and NATO fears that the net result won't be more cross-border Taleban attacks on Western forces in Afghanistan.
A lawyers' movement that sprang up last year to fight Musharraf's attempts to dictate to the judiciary will seek to hasten Musharraf's departure with a mass protest next week.
Dubbed the ‘long march’, the protest will drive across central Punjab province from the cities of Multan and Lahore to Islamabad.