My Dear Pervez Musharraf,

I thought I must write to you, when I heard that you had resigned as President of Pakistan. I know my advice comes a little too late for you, but if only you had asked we could have offered quite a few suggestions that would have helped you to stay in power.

I think you made many mistakes in the recent past, Musharraf, which is why you had to go. But looking back, I believe you will find that you have only yourself to blame. And I will tell you why.

Remember, you allowed Benazir to return and even though she was killed in a bomb attack, it was her return that gave momentum to the campaign against you. And she even teamed up with Nawaz Sharif to try and teach you a lesson.

You must never allow your predecessors-especially ladies- to return to the country and engage in politics, Musharraf. Even if they want to return to their own country, their privileges must be stripped and they must be put through court proceedings for acts they did while in office. That way, they will be busy dealing with those issues instead of challenging you!

And you should have known that when two former Prime Ministers who were sworn enemies of each other were getting together, it would be a lethal combination. You should have taken action then to stop them campaigning together and that was the beginning of the end for you.

You also made the mistake of holding general elections, Musharraf and you should never have done that. You should have known that the opposition always clamours for general elections but that doesn’t mean you should have them.

Of course, if you wanted to tell the world that you are a democrat who likes elections, you could always hold polls in the provinces, every now and then. That way, you can concentrate all the government’s resources in one or two provinces, stuff the ballot boxes, win the elections and then tell the people that you have a fresh mandate!

But Musharraf, of all the blunders you made probably the worst was sacking the Chief Justice. The Chief Justice of Pakistan, like most of their kind, must be a decent man who acts according to his conscience and calls a spade a spade and convicts officials who do corrupt deals.

So, if his court rulings became a nuisance to you what you should have done was to stamp your authority in a different way-retaining an official he sacked, perhaps-instead of trying to get rid of the CJ. That was a fatal mistake, Musharraf…

And, I think you didn’t sell yourself well, Musharraf. It is true that corruption was rife in your government and the economy was in a shambles but you could have always said that you were winning the war against terror and that would have kept the people on your side!

Why, if all else failed, you could have even had a series of cricket matches in Pakistan with dancing girls cheering from the boundary lines. You know, Musharraf, how our people react to cricket-they will forget anything and everything as long as their team is winning…

Anyway, all I can do now is wish you a happy retirement because all this advice comes too late for you but if you had only looked around at your neighbours in the region, some of them could have given you this advice as well…

Yours truly,
Punchi Putha

PS-Musharraf, don’t you have a single uneducated thug in your government to whom you can give a free hand and ask him to intimidate all your opponents in politics and in the media. That way, he does all your dirty work for you and takes the rap but you stay in the clear! Well, if only you asked, we could have provided you with one of them as well…