PAKISTAN:BENAZIR BHUTTO'S teenage son and political heir, Bilawal, will announce the identity of Pakistan's next prime minister by the end of this weekend, his party has said, ending weeks of backroom wrangling and setting the stage for a confrontation between the new government and the embattled president, Pervez Musharraf.
The 19-year-old, who is a student at Oxford University, England, was brought home by his father and party co-chairman, Asif Ali Zardari, who has been at the heart of contentious negotiations over the prime minister's job.
A party spokesman Farhatullah Babar said on Thursday Bilawal would announce the winner on Sunday night or Monday morning, when Musharraf has promised to facilitate the formation of a new four-party coalition government dominated by Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party and Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League.
Wrangling about who should become prime minister overshadowed an otherwise bright week in Pakistan's normally crisis-stricken politics. On Wednesday the new parliament elected Dr Fehmida Mirza as speaker - the first woman to hold that position in a Muslim country.
The initial sessions were eager, glamour-tinged affairs. First-time parliamentarians arrived in designer sunglasses, gleaming cars and dapper new outfits. Some 76 of the 342 seats are occupied by women, largely thanks to a quota system. Senior Musharraf advisers who lost their seats in the February 18th poll watched sullenly from the visitors' gallery.
"The days of dictatorship are over," said Asif Zardari, who is thought to hold ambitions of being prime minister even though he does not have a seat. There is speculation he could come to power through a byelection in the coming months.
However, a series of looming crises mean that the new government's honeymoon is likely to be shortlived.
Sharpshooters perched on the parliament roof and bulletproof 4x4s parked outside were reminders of the threat posed by resurgent Islamist militants. A string of suicide bombings have killed more than 150 people this year. In the latest attack yesterday, a militant killed five Pakistani soldiers and wounded nine others near the Afghan border.
The violence has spread to the larger cities, where many residents live in fear.
"It's an unseen enemy. It's like a civil war situation," said Salman Batalvi, an advertising executive whose office was destroyed in a blast in Lahore last week.
Foreigners also feel they are targets. A bomb at an Italian restaurant in Islamabad last weekend killed one person and wounded 13 others, including a Scotland Yard detective and four American FBI agents.
On top of this threat, a painful economic squeeze is expected. Chronic electricity shortages could see 10-hour blackouts in some parts over the long and humid summer, according to some newspapers. In industrial areas some factories have already been forced to scale down production.
Fuel prices have risen 17 per cent since March 1st, causing the cash-strapped national carrier Pakistan International Airlines to ground eight aircraft. Meanwhile, ordinary Pakistanis are struggling to cope with galloping food inflation. Prices of wheat, oil and other staples have soared in recent months, triggering long lines outside government food stores.
The economic troubles are partly the fault of the previous government led by the Musharraf loyalist Shaukat Aziz, a technocratic banker with little political support.
Despite numerous claims of economic success while in office, he now faces sharp criticism for big mistakes, most notably the failure to add capacity to the creaking national power grid.
But the new administration's first challenge is simply to stay together. Despite public smiles and extravagant displays of bonhomie, the alliance between Zardari and Sharif faces numerous strains. They differ on how to handle the increasingly isolated Musharraf. Sharif, who was ousted by the former general in a 1999 coup, has vowed to force out Musharraf. Zardari favours a more conciliatory approach, although they may soon wield the two-thirds majority needed to impeach the president.
The other contentious issue is the judges. Both parties have vowed to restore the 60 judges fired by Musharraf last November, including the president's arch-rival, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry.
But the return of Chaudhry, who has become a hero for many Pakistanis, would be a major provocation to Musharraf and could trigger an explosive confrontation.
In a rare telephone address from the Islamabad home where he is being detained yesterday, Chaudhry was unbowed. "God willing, this struggle will continue until we succeed," he said.