Musharraf challenges come to boil

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - This country's long-running political crisis has entered a decisive phase, with developments in the coming weeks likely to determine whether President Pervez Musharraf is able to hang on to power or is pushed aside.

Exiled opponents, such as former Prime Ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, are vowing to come home and reclaim a place on the political stage. The current parliament, whose rubber-stamp approval Musharraf needs to secure another term as president, is nearing the end of its term. An emboldened Supreme Court is weighing legal challenges to the president's participation in politics while he retains his position as military chief.

And all the while, popular anger simmers. The country's recent celebrations of the 60th anniversary of the end of British colonial rule and the advent of statehood were muted not only by security fears, but also by a sense among many ordinary Pakistanis that a transition away from military rule is long overdue.

The United States has key interests at stake in Pakistan, an ally in the U.S.- and NATO-led war in Afghanistan and a nuclear-armed regional power that is battling to keep a small but virulent Islamic insurgency of its own at bay.

The Bush administration has been discreetly prodding Musharraf, a secular general who seized power in a coup eight years ago, to accept a power-sharing arrangement with Bhutto. But his standing has eroded to such an extent that it is no longer clear whether such a deal would be in Bhutto's interest.

Even some of the Pakistani leader's longtime allies have begun quietly weighing their own options in a post-Musharraf era, analysts say.

"He's terribly unpopular, and anyone who stands with him now is going to be unpopular as well," said political analyst Shafqat Mehmood, a former senator.

Pakistan's powerful military, whose economic and political influence extends far beyond the realm of national defense, continues to back its commander-in-chief. But there have been signs that Musharraf no longer enjoys the unquestioned authority of previous years.

This month, the general considered imposing emergency rule, a measure that would have given him authoritarian-style powers against political opponents and the Pakistani media. Some analysts believe influential military figures counseled him against such a measure, which would probably have provoked widespread unrest.

After a long spring and summer of discontent, matters are finally coming to a head, political and legal observers say. The clock is ticking down on the five-year term of the current parliament, which was elected in a 2002 vote widely believed to have been rigged in the general's favor.

A presidential vote by an electoral college made up of national and regional lawmakers is to take place between Sept. 15 and Oct. 15. The constitution requires Musharraf to call the election during that period.

Following that vote would be parliamentary elections, either late this year or early next year.

The Supreme Court, presided over by Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry, the chief justice whom Musharraf unsuccessfully tried to oust, has indicated it will entertain challenges to the presidential vote being conducted by current lawmakers, rather than the new parliament that is to be elected around the turn of the year.

The court is also expected to be asked to determine whether Musharraf should be held, at last, to the constitutional ban on holding office while in uniform.

Musharraf's opponents, meanwhile, are treading a delicate path of their own. Bhutto's camp has been in talks with the general for more than a year about an agreement under which she would return to lead her party in the parliamentary campaign.

Bhutto, who served two terms as prime minister in the 1980s and '90s, wants Musharraf to agree to relinquish his military role and guarantee a free and fair vote. But she has warned that the window of opportunity for reaching a deal could soon close.

"Without progress on the issue of fair elections, this dialogue could founder," Bhutto said. "And now, as we approach the autumn, time is running out."

The terms of the prospective deal are believed to include a reversal of a ban on Bhutto's serving a third term as prime minister, and the dismissal of still-pending corruption charges that have forced her to spend nearly a decade in exile.

But Bhutto herself is under growing pressure from another exiled former leader, Sharif, whose party's popularity now rivals or exceeds that of hers. Any association with Musharraf, even one that serves to remove him from a position of absolute power, could leave her tainted by the general's unpopularity, analysts say.

Sharif last week won an appeal to the Supreme Court, which overturned his banishment at the hands of Musharraf, who overthrew him in 1999. After the ruling, Sharif said in London that he would return and lead his party in the parliamentary elections.

Some analysts point out, however, that Musharraf's takeover was welcomed at the time by most Pakistanis, who were weary of incompetence and corruption in the elected governments of Sharif and Bhutto.

"Military governments do impose some kind of order, and civil society is messy," said historian Jon E. Wilson of King's College in London. "In some ways, military rule is the centerpiece of how Pakistani society is ordered. But it's impossible to sustain permanently."