Democracy and the uniform

President Pervez Musharraf’s remarks made in a speech to a public meeting in Dera Ismail Khan on Saturday that his army uniform has nothing to do with democracy and in fact may have strengthened democracy need to be taken with a pinch of salt. The fact is that democracy and its advocates, whether they happen to be in Pakistan or overseas, do not think that it can mix with military rule, or a president who also happens to be the professional head of a country’s army. Take the case of America where according to that country’s constitution, the president is the commander-in-chief of the US military. However, the distinction between that and our example is obvious — the US constitution does not envisage a military soldier as commander-in-chief although some American presidents, especially in the nineteenth century, made a name as military generals before they decided to stand for public office. However, they first retired or left the military and competed as a civilian.