Pakistan's Musharraf: "You Must Change Minds"

BusinessWeek

JANUARY 30, 2006

NEWSMAKER Q&A

By Manjeet Kripalani

The President talks about the country's economy, democracy, terrorism, India-Pakistan relations, and more
Among the many heads of state to attend the sessions on "improving the state of the world" at the World Economic Forum summit in Davos, Switzerland, this year was Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. He has been all over the summit, giving press interviews on his handling of the recent earthquake in Kashmir, his thoughts on Muslim society and culture, and more. But among the most extended comments Musharraf made came during a 35-minute monologue over breakfast at the Belvedere Hotel to a group of 150 specially invited guests. Here are excerpts.

On the Pakistani economy:
When I came in 1999, I didn't have a strategy, goals, objectives on things like health and education. We were a rudderless ship in turbulent waters.

So I selected a team. We achieved results, and I am proud of it. The Pakistani economy is in a high growth rate. Here are the positive economic indicators: GDP growth of 8.4%, debt is down, tax revenue is up, exports have risen over 100%, our Moody's rating is up. We have the best-performing stock market in the world, which went from 900 when I came to 10,500 now, breaking all records. Now we want to transfer these gains to the people of Pakistan.

On democracy:
I am a strong believer in democracy. It has never existed in Pakistan, which has always been under martial law.

I realized people were not empowered, democracy has not been taken down to the bottom, and there were no checks on the power brokers of Pakistan, i.e. the President, the Army chief, and the Prime Minister.

I tried to change everything through a local government system, doing away with the colonial administrative system of having a district collector rule the rural areas and having an elected mayor instead. We empowered women by giving them fixed, reserved seats at every juncture of the political sphere. We empowered minorities, which had been sidelined. We have passed a law against honour killings, never done before. Now we are addressing the "hadood" law [one which discriminates against women]. We can't do everything at once.

At the top, we need checks and balances. The people of Pakistan think a lot about the army, we have strong bonds, and when we have political trouble, people come to us and ask us to save Pakistan. People had asked me to take over some years ago, but that's not the right thing to do. Now we have a Senate with civilians and army people, to whom leaders are answerable.

So I've introduced sustainable democracy, the essence of democracy in Pakistan. And we've freed the media, given them back free speech. We have the infrastructure of democracy, like an independent judiciary.

On terrorism:
We have contributed the maximum to bring peace to our region and to the world. We've captured 700 Taliban, they are on the run in the mountains. We've passed on information on terrorism to many countries. Many countries in the world owe it to Pakistan for having saved them from terrorist attacks. It hurts me when people say Pakistan has been dragging its feet on terrorism.

But extremism is in the mind of the people, and you can't just eliminate it: You must change minds. The military can't do this alone, but for the end result, the military is now buying time for the other insitutions in Pakistan to work. I have a strategy of "enlightenened moderation." There are political parties abetting political extremism, and I take full credit for telling people, "don't vote for them." I'm reasonably sure that in the 2007 elections, the share of their vote will be reduced from 60% to the 2% or 3% they had earlier.

On Pakistan-India relations:
I'm perceived to be a warrior, a man of war. I fought wars, but that does not mean I cannot think of peace, I am more eminently qualified to think of peace. I know what war means. I want to bring peace permanently to the region.

There are a lot of extremists in our society who believe we should be on a militant path with India. I tell them, you are wrong. It will be resolved through political means.

On his succession:
I'm not worried. There's no monarchy here that I have to worry about a successor. The system has to throw up some one. I know I have a threat over my life, but I am a lucky leader. A leader should be lucky, too. The leader of the Senate becomes President after me, but they may not be as good as me! Or they could be better, maybe.

The system will do it. That's the beauty of democracy.