user: Anger at Decree Runs Deep in Pakistanis

After eight years of military rule, the limbs of civil society that might organize people are atrophied. With their leaders in exile all that time, even the country’s main opposition parties are weak and divided, many said.

Instead, on people’s minds was the economy, already beset by spiraling prices. The mix of views outside the Lucky garage on the outskirts of Rawalpindi on Thursday night was typical.

Of seven young men — most covered in grease — almost all had a junior high education and made roughly $200 a month. Two had never attended school and were illiterate.

Six criticized General Musharraf’s declaration, but all cited a drop in business as the main reason. Police checkpoints and uncertainty had kept customers at home, they said.

Muhammad Imran, a 24-year-old with a fifth-grade education who managed the garage, said the emergency had worsened the most important reality of his life: poverty. He was unaware and unconcerned about democracy, but wanted more customers. “We lose every day,” he said angrily. “People won’t come here.”

Of the 30 interviewed, only 2 supported the emergency declaration.

One was Ghulam Murtaza, 24, a tailor in Islamabad. “He’s done the right thing,” he said, as he ate lunch in his small shop. “There would have been a bomb blast.”

Most supported a return to civilian government, saying that it would provide better services and that it was the best way to marginalize religious militants who had carried out a rising number of suicide bombings. Most said they had little interest in an Islamic government.

But some, especially the poor, expressed deep cynicism about the prospect for change after decades of disappointment with political and military leaders. Civilian government was preferable, if for no other reason than exhaustion with military rule, which they said had not benefited them.

“Whoever comes and rules, it won’t affect us,” said Muhammad Nawaz, 51, a street vendor. “No party gives us anything. Nobody cares about poor people.”

Since it was created when the British partitioned colonial India 60 years ago, Pakistan’s powerful military has ruled the country for most of its history. Again and again, military coups interrupted civilian governments, widely viewed as ineffective and corrupt.

But after eight years of military rule by General Musharraf, and now de facto martial law, only one person preferred a military government to a civilian government. Nearly all said they felt it was time for Pakistan to try democracy again.

Yasir Mehmood, 30, the owner of a cellphone shop in Islamabad, called the failure of democracy the country’s “biggest tragedy.” While he agreed that civilian politicians were corrupt, he said that was preferable to martial law.

“They might be corrupt,” he said. “But this is a worse situation.”

An article yesterday about the anger on the streets of Pakistan over President Pervez Musharraf’s declaration of emergency rule misstated the circumstances of Pakistan’s independence 60 years ago. It was created when the British partitioned colonial India into the states of India and Pakistan. It was not granted independence by India.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A12 of the New York edition with the headline: Anger at Decree Runs Deep in Pakistanis. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe
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assistant: In interviews on the streets of Islamabad, rich and poor, professionals and laborers, are overwhelmingly opposed to the president’s emergency decree.