Mr Musharraf, after clinging to power for the last few months in the hope that America would bail him out finally called it a day announcing his resignation in a TV address to the nation on August 18, 2008. And so the curtain fell on nine years of his dictatorial role which he called "democracy". He declared that he was resigning for the sake of the country. He dwelt at length in the major part of his speech on the achievements of his government, but skipped his unconstitutional actions of imposing emergency and sacking the entire senior judiciary opening a door for lawyer's agitation and widespread protests by political parties which shook the foundation of his fragile rule. Pakistan's 60 years history is briefly the sad story of the "great betrayal" of this nation by its rulers, both civilian and military in the past as well as present. Their dictatorial regimes flagrantly abused power, either openly or deceptively in the garb of democracy. These hijackers of Pakistan, drawn mostly from the feudal, bureaucratic or military elite, barring a few rare exceptions, neither represented the people over whom they ruled, nor shared the ideals and the vision behind the creation of this "safe haven" for Muslims where they could uphold and safeguard their endangered religious and cultural identity and live a life of dignity and self-respect away from the swirling sea of hatred and bigotry of Hindu India. They, as was expected of them trampled the basic objectives and the value system on which the country was founded by Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah after relentless struggle of a lifetime and the untold sufferings and sacrifices of millions of his followers. Not learning any lesson from the traumatic experience of 1971, the successive military and civilian governments also failed to regenerate and revitalise the nation and put it on the path of progress and prosperity. On the contrary, the country further slipped into the quagmire of instability, massive corruption, rampant violence and ethnic and sectarian strife. In recent years, the unabashed plunder of the nation's wealth by the ruling elite and their families and cronies, combined with gross financial mismanagement and undemocratic style of governance, once again, brought the country to the brink of instability and economic collapse. After completing 60 years of its life, Pakistan still finds itself in yet another great crisis, which is threatening the country's very existence. Army is fighting a full-fledged war against Taliban in NWFP at the cost of human lives and untold misery to thousands of innocent men, women and children. This is in fact a proxy war for the United States for which it is paying billions of dollars to Pakistan for its services. This fiasco may result in the capture of NWFP by the Taliban. God forbid if this happens, it will be the second dismemberment of Pakistan after the breaking away of its eastern wing. Mr Musharraf under intense pressure from the US, grudgingly held general elections hoping that his party of sycophants (PML-Q) would win landslide victory. How could it. Its incompetent government had failed to control the worsening law and order situation, daily suicidal attacks by extremists, unbelievable rise in the cost of living, rapid escalation in food inflation, so much so that the poor could not afford to buy atta or rice to feed themselves. The rich were getting richer, while the poor were getting dirt poor and going hungry. Such situations in history have always led to revolutions in many countries. Musharraf and his cronies must have been living in a fool's paradise if they thought that they would win the elections. In the meantime, President Musharraf had to open the doors for PPP and PML-N leaders, again under intense US pressure to come to Pakistan through an illegal Ordinance called NRO condoning all their cases of corruption and misgovernance which were still pending in the courts. The PPP and PML-N won landslide victory in the elections and formed a coalition government at the Centre and the provinces. The coalition has now fallen apart as Zardari went back on his solemn written agreement with Nawaz Sharif for the restoration of deposed judges. The funny part of the story is that the co-chairman of PPP, who is the real functional head of the government, is not an elected member of parliament, nor some of his cronies who are holding most important portfolios have been elected by the people. One wonders how such a government could be called democratic. The Musharraf era has finally ended but the future of Pakistan is still under dark clouds with a weak democratic government. Some of the most urgent problems which need to be addressed immediately are daily suicidal attacks in which hundreds of innocent people lose their lives, the daily increasing cost of living which has broken the back of the poor and middle classes, acute shortage of electricity and periodical rise in the price of oil and gas are becoming unbearable. These problems need to be solved as early as possible if the present government has to survive. The way out for the government seems to be to take extreme austerity measures in its extravagant expenses on oil and electricity and introduce a culture of simplicity and frugality in its own ranks and encourage media to motivate the nation to adopt austerity and simplicity in their daily lives, which is also the message of Islam. The writer is a former director news, PTV E-mail: burhanhasan@hotmail.com