Pakistan’s President, General Pervez Musharraf attended today a ceremony of farewell that marked his resignation as head of the army.

On Wednesday he will carry out one of opposition leaders’ demands and step down from the post as head of the army. On Thursday he will be sworn as a civilian president.

The ceremony took place at the army’s headquarters at Rawalpindi and it was a very carefully orchestrated one. Musharraf’s stepping down as head of army could trigger the unsettlement of Pakistan's influential 500,000-strong military.

Musharraf was welcomed at the ceremony by a guard of honor made up of service personnel from the army, navy and air force, Guardian Unlimited reports.

According to Rashid Qureshi, Musharraf's spokesman, the president will be making other "farewell visits" before putting aside his military career, which began in 1964.

General Ashfaq Kayani, a former chief of the country's powerful intelligence service, was named as Musharraf’s successor. He is expected to take charge of his post tomorrow.

Although he steps down as head of the army, Musharraf will keep his current military staff and the army will be in charge of his security.

His movement was welcomed by the U.S. state department saying it is a "step toward putting the country back on the path to greater democracy.”

Some of Musharraf’s allies are saying that he is ready to accomplish other opposition parties’ demands. Still, he will not accept to reappoint the deposed justices of the Supreme Court.

According to Malik Muhammad Qayyum, the attorney general, and Sheikh Rashid Ahmad, the former railways minister, Musharraf is ready to lift state of emergency and reinstate the constitution before January 8, when elections are to be held.  

Musharraf is confronted by two opposition leaders, Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto, both of them former prime ministers, who have returned from years of exile. They’ve registered to run for the elections, but they are also threatening to boycott them, if the emergency rule is not lifted until then.