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The wacky things Pervez Musharraf has been tweeting since returning to Pakistan

When former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf returned to Karachi from exile on March 24, at least 17,000 people were following along — on his Twitter feed, @P_Musharraf. He even made his own hashtag for the occasion: #musharrafreturn. It’s been a pretty strange ride ever since. Despite occasional lapses into the third person, Musharraf appears to ...

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Twitter/@P_Musharraf
Twitter/@P_Musharraf
Twitter/@P_Musharraf

When former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf returned to Karachi from exile on March 24, at least 17,000 people were following along -- on his Twitter feed, @P_Musharraf. He even made his own hashtag for the occasion: #musharrafreturn.

When former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf returned to Karachi from exile on March 24, at least 17,000 people were following along — on his Twitter feed, @P_Musharraf. He even made his own hashtag for the occasion: #musharrafreturn.

It’s been a pretty strange ride ever since. Despite occasional lapses into the third person, Musharraf appears to run his own account (in the style of American politicians such as Claire McCaskill, and formerly Chuck Grassley and Scott Brown), which makes for a level of intimacy that is unusual for public figures on the Internet. Here are the highlights — sometimes bizarre, sometimes insightful — from the former president’s feed over the past several days.

Before he returned to Pakistan, Musharraf — in true politician style — used his feed to advertise his homecoming with goofy graphics and donation requests. 

The requests to "donate generously" were repeated daily. But on March 21, the feed got more personal. It tracked his pilgrimage to Mecca and chronicled his flight back to Karachi.

There’s still plenty of politicking in his feed — he’s once again running for office, after all — and he tweets his many press appearances. But then there are gems like this: 

That link goes to Musharraf’s Facebook page and a picture of his imposing bodyguard carrying an M-4. Or this one:

Look at those shoes! Just look at them! (Also, can someone get the president a better camera?) And then today he live-tweeted his bail hearing.

So, there you go. Just one more way the Internet is making politics downright weird.

J. Dana Stuster is a policy analyst at the National Security Network. Twitter: @jdanastuster
Tag: Pakistan

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