PAKISTAN's army is speeding up the transfer of power to the country's new civilian government, further isolating embattled US anti-terror ally President Pervez Musharraf, analysts say. Musharraf is confronting a hostile coalition government that won elections in February in the latest see-saw between army and civilian rule in Pakistan's 60-year history. But in a departure from previous years when ministers visited the army chief, current military supremo General Ashfaq Kayani came to new premier Yousaf Raza Gilani's residence on Wednesday for a security briefing. Later the same day Kayani, who succeeded Musharraf as army chief in November last year, replaced a key confidant of the president as head of the crucial Military Intelligence unit. “It is another step that isolates President Pervez Musharraf. He is increasingly isolated by the new political power setup,” general-turned-defense-analyst Talat Masood said. “It shows the times are changing in Pakistan. I think that it is the first time the COAS (chief of army staff) went to the PM House for such a briefing to the political leaders, showing that now the army is prepared to promote democracy,” he said. Kayani vowed earlier this year to pull the army out of politics and began by ordering the withdrawal of officers from key government and bureaucratic roles in early February. Analysts said that the most important step came when the military and its associated spy agencies did not meddle in the Feb, 18 elections, which took place amid widespread expectations that they would be rigged. “The revolution was more when Kayani said publicly that the army wants free and fair elections,” leading newspaper columnist and political analyst Shafqat Mahmood said. He said the meeting on Wednesday was “symbolic, in a sense, that the power has transferred from military side to civil side.” “The army played a role it is supposed to play in democracy. In the elections army and its intelligence remained aloof,” former army chief General Mirza Aslam Beg said. Wednesday's visit also showed that the army agreed with Gilani's call for political solutions to the wave of violence spreading from the troubled tribal areas bordering Afghanistan into Pakistan's big cities. “The threat of this insurgency is also making the armed forces realize that it is important to promote democracy,” Masood said. The apparent harmony between the army and the new government should reassure Washington, which has been watching anxiously to see if the new administration will remain committed to fighting Al-Qaeda and Taleban militants. But the real test for the army will come if the new government decides to go head-to-head with Musharraf by reinstating around 60 judges sacked by the president under a state of emergency in November. Musharraf purged the judiciary when it looked like the Supreme Court was about to overturn his reelection as president - but if the old judges return then he could find his position under threat. “The army role will become important when the issue of the judiciary comes up, only in this sense that if Musharraf tries to get the army involved, I think they will say no,” Mahmood said. Former army chief Beg agreed. “The armed forces' role is defined in the constitution, it is the politicians who forced army into politics and tempted them to take over in the past. But I think they (army leaders) have learnt a bitter lesson,” he said. “In 1989 (in the first turbulent year of Benazir Bhutto's government) they came to me and invited the army to intervene. I said, ‘Sorry, God bless you.'” __
