Anxious to deflect attention from failures in statecraft and an economy tottering on the verge of collapse, the Prime Minister, Mr Nawaz Sharif, yesterday introduced a bill to replace Pakistan's legal code with the Sharia.
The Sharia, or Islamic justice, already applies in family law, a legacy of the military dictatorships of the 1980s and an earlier spell in office by Mr Sharif. Those laws, which have been used against women and minorities, fell short of the "true Islamic welfare state" now envisaged, he said yesterday.
"Simple changes in laws are not enough," he told the National Assembly in a televised address. "I want to implement complete Islamic laws where the Koran and the Sunna (writing of the prophet Mohammed) are supreme."
The constitutional amendment would compel bureaucrats to pray five times a day and introduce tithes in a society where only 2 per cent of citizens pay taxes.
However, Mr Sharif tried to allay fears of a move towards the extreme version of Islam practised by the Taliban militia in neighbouring Afghanistan by promising to ensure women's right to education and to protect minorities.
Pakistani liberals immediately condemned the bill as a transparent attempt to placate Islamic militants, who have been staging daily protests since last week's cruise missile attacks against suspected terrorist bases in Afghanistan.
Mr Sharif has little tolerance for democratic institutions, moving to censor the press as recently as this week, and engaging in a bruising showdown with the Supreme Court last December.
"It's not about Islam - it's about himself," said Ms Asma Jehangir, an activist lawyer from Lahore, and the UN rapporteur on human rights.
However, she admitted the bill could not be stopped as Mr Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League enjoys nearly a two-thirds parliamentary majority.
Ms Jehangir fears the law, which could affect most aspects of daily life, would be used to stifle dissent. "It actually means a total repeal of the constitution to disguise his own mismanagement and to promote a fascist regime in the name of Islam," she said.
In the last week, Mr Sharif has come under increasing attack for his conduct during the missile strike. Islamists gather in Islamabad and other cities to burn US flags and effigies of President Clinton. He has been forced to repeatedly deny prior knowledge of the attacks - evidence of his irrelevance on the world stage, according to the press.
Mr Sharif is also accused of ignoring a government on the verge of bankruptcy and the widespread hardships inflicted by sanctions imposed following Pakistan's nuclear test last May.
Ms Jehangir said the law would give the government sweeping powers to dismantle the upper house, or senate, where Mr Sharif's Muslim League is less dominant, and to sack bureaucrats and judges viewed as dangerously independent.
She also feared the measures would represent a toughening of Islamic courts introduced during the martial law era, which punished illicit sexual relations with stoning. However, such sentences were never carried out.
Mr Sharif's previous forays into Islamic justice in the early 1990s were diluted by parliament.