MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti political commentator Pyotr Goncharov) - On August 18, the president of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, Pervez Musharraf, announced his resignation.

He made the announcement without waiting for the parliamentary impeachment hearings. Against this background his decision could be interpreted either as capitulation or as an implicit admission of the charges against him. Yet in all likelihood it is neither.

Perhaps one should go along with Musharraf, who said that he had decided to resign "in the national interests." Indeed, he had to make a hard choice between democracy and order. He had faced the same choice repeatedly in the past and he invariably chose in favor of "order." And he has invariably been vindicated. This time around the general-president chose in favor of democracy, and apparently he has made the right choice again. Perhaps the only right choice. Here is why.

The charges against Musharraf are serious. He is charged with overthrowing the democratically elected government in 1999, which went down in Pakistan's recent history as a "bloodless military coup." He illegally dismissed Supreme Court judges on the eve of the last presidential election in 2007 and introduced a state of emergency in November 2007. Finally he is charged with combining the functions of president and commander-in-chief, an accusation levied by the West, including the United States.

Before taking off his general's uniform on the eve of his second presidential term Musharraf responded to his Western critics: It is unrealistic to expect Pakistan to copy the Western form of democracy, human rights and civil liberties. It took the West centuries to achieve what it has today, and it wants Pakistan to become the same within years. Pakistan will be democratic, but it will follow its own path.

This was not just rhetoric. It was his policy, from which he did not depart under any circumstances. This was his strength and a harbinger of his inevitable defeat if a split in society was to be avoided. Now is such a time.

Musharraf has probably best summed up the current political situation in the country by describing it as a "political jungle". Officially Pakistan has three main political centers. The Pakistan People's Party (PPP) led by Asif Zardari, the husband of Benazir Bhutto, who was assassinated last December; the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (ML-N) led by Nawaz Sharif, whom Musharraf deposed from the post of prime minister in 1999; and Musharraf's own Muslim League, known as the Pakistan Muslim League (Quaid-e-Azam).

The big problem is that PPP and ML-N, unlike other political parties in Pakistan, have recently been preoccupied with internal problems and do not have serious influence on the social and political processes inside the country. Their victory in the parliamentary elections in 2008 was due to the electorate's loss of confidence in such traditional Pakistani parties as Islamic Society (Jamaat-e-Islami) and the Awami National Party.

Besides, PPP and ML-N are locked in a power struggle. In the 1980s and 1990s their fierce political battles repeatedly created serious political and social crises in Pakistan. Today their coalition against Musharraf is a forced and certainly a temporary phenomenon. They are unlikely to allow any of the two parties' leaders, Zardari or Nawaz Sharif, to become president. It is not by chance that Asif Zardari does not rule out a woman president in Pakistan. A woman would provide a temporary "neutral" figure who would be easy to replace when the circumstances warrant it.

The "female" variant has been tried before. It is thought to be a forced but justified compromise. But there are several nuances in Pakistan that must be taken into account. The new president will have to confront the problem of the North-West Frontier Province on the border with Afghanistan, which, according to the U.S. and NATO, is a haven for al-Qaeda and Taliban militants.

Musharraf, much to the displeasure of the U.S. and NATO, made a peace deal with the so-called "Pakistani Taliban." He made it clear to the U.S. that as president of the country he would not allow any third country to carry out military, even if counterterrorist, operations in his country. On the other hand, he has been a fairly consistent ally of the U.S. in fighting terror, including in the North-West Frontier Province.

Finally, Pervez Musharraf has managed to extricate Pakistan from interminable political crises, which invariably led to the resignation of the government, the dissolution of parliament and a takeover of power by the military. Suffice it to say that under Musharraf, for the first time in Pakistan's history, parliament has served out its constitutional term. His motto "Pakistan above everything" was often at the expense of Western-style "democracy" but it spared Pakistani society serious social problems. What will happen now?

Pakistan has a traditional institution called the national army. If the new Pakistani president does not have Musharraf's charisma, fails to agree with the U.S. and the Pakistani Taliban in the North-West Frontier Province and fails to balance the essentially secular form of government with the claims of Islamic parties, Pakistan will be in for another social and political crisis. In such cases the army has always taken power in its hands. So far there are no other options, judging from Pakistan's history. Indeed, other options may be bad for Pakistan.

The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.