Pervez Musharraf

Pervez Musharraf (Urdu: پرویز مشرف‎; born: 11 August 1943), is a retired four-star general and a politician who served as the tenth President of Pakistan from 2001 until 2008. Prior to that, he was the 13th Chief of Army Staff from October 1998 till November 2007, and was also the tenth Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee of Pakistan Armed Forces from 1998 until 2001. Commissioned in Pakistan Army in 1964, Musharraf rose to national prominence after being appointed to the four-star assignments in October 1998 by then-Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. Musharraf was the mastermind and strategic field commander behind the highly controversial and internationally condemned Kargil infiltration, which derailed peace negotiations with Pakistan's long standing archenemy India. Previously as in early 1996, Musharraf played a vital role in the Afghan civil war, both assisting the peace negotiations and attempting to end the bloodshed in the country. After months of contentious relations with Prime Minister Sharif, Musharraf was brought up power politics through a military coup d'état in 1999, and subsequently placing the Prime minister under a strict house-arrest before shifting the prime minister to Adiala Jail in Punjab Province.

Restoration of national economy was one of the earliest initiatives were taken by him after appointing his close aide, Shaukat Aziz as Finance Minister. He secured the nomination of Presidency on June 2001 and succeeded Rafique Tarar as the President of Pakistan. As an aftermath of 11 September attacks in the United States, Musharraf closely allied with the United States and the allied powers in the War on Terror. After accepting the rulings of the Supreme Court, Musharraf became the first president for holding general elections nationwide, based on the rulings of the supreme court. Appointing Zafarullah Jamali as Prime minister in 2002, Musharraf accepted his resignation in 2004 and approved the appointment of Shaukat Aziz as Prime minister instead. Voluntarily surrendering the powers of chief executive and the authority to Shaukat Aziz whom Musharraf eye-blindly trusted, their rule was marred by controversies in the last two years, including the armed action in Red Mosque.

With Aziz constitutionally completing his term and the suspension of the Chief Justice in 2007, Musharraf dramatically fell from the presidency in 2008 after voluntarily resigning in a facing threat of impeachment led by the people-elected opposition parties. After departing, Musharraf currently in self-exile in London but has vowed to return for the next election. In his absence in Pakistan, the country's courts issued arrests warrants for him and Aziz in the allege involvement in the assassination of Benazir Bhutto and Akbar Bugti. Due to his sudden rise and fall in the national politics, Western scholar Ian Kershaw of Sheffield University, described Musharraf as Pakistan-based Paul von Hindenburg.