President Pervez Musharraf flies home from what's being called a measurably successful overseas tour this week into a worsening political deadlock, with speculation rife that tough action against the rebellious parliament is high on his agenda.
"The prospects of dissolution are more finely balanced than many people think," an Islamabad-based diplomat said.
"Musharraf is facing ridiculous opposition from all over the place. He's getting bogged down in detail.
"His vision is evaporating. He's spending all his time running trench warfare."
Other analysts say Musharraf is more likely to use the courts to curb the opposition, pointing to a challenge in the supreme court against the academic qualifications of mainly Islamist opposition member of parliaments (MPs) that could see them unseated.
Since October elections, which restored the first parliament since Musharraf's 1999 coup and were supposed to end his three-year military rule, only one piece of legislation has been passed: the national budget.
A loose alliance of secular and Islamic opposition parties are waging a bitter campaign to force him to surrender self-appointed power and his simultaneous post as army chief.
Most sessions of the 342-seat parliament, in which the pro-Musharraf coalition holds a slender majority, have descended into theatrics of shouts, slow chants, desk-slapping and foot-stomping by opposition MPs, forcing countless sessions to be abandoned.
The budget was only tabled on June 7 over a din of cantankerous opposition protests.
Twice last month the chamber was beset with hours of pandemonium, and the opposition is even pushing ahead with a no-confidence motion this Saturday on the parliament's deputy speaker after boycotting their own earlier motion against the chief speaker.
"He's more likely thinking of dissolution than he was a month ago. The budget session underscored that parliament is not working," the diplomat said.
"Musharraf is now staring down the barrel of an eight-month-old parliament, with no legislation passed except budget and no bills in progress.
"He's becoming increasingly frustrated, he can't do anything with his reform agenda ... he's being forced to trade off a lot of what he wants to do in terms of modernizing and moderating Islam," the diplomat said.
The Supreme Court challenge, sponsored privately by a lawyer, is most widely considered Musharraf's best alternative to avoiding the trauma of sacking the parliament, and the most effective means of wrenching compromise from Islamic parties, the most serious opposition force.
The lawyer has asked the court to unseat the MPs because they do not hold a university bachelor degree, which Musharraf made a prerequisite in a controversial decree just three months before the October polls.
Retired Lieutenant General Talat Masood stressed dissolution would be a last resort.
"If the paralysis of government continues, you can't rule out the scenario," he said.
"But it's the worst-case scenario," he said.
Dissolution would be close to political suicide, as even the army would have to reconsider its support of Musharraf, Masood said.
"He'll lose more than anyone else because it will mean he's failed, and it would mean his end, because in that scenario it would be difficult to last as army chief," he said.
Several observers believe Musharraf may have sounded out officials in the US on how they would view dissolution.
"He'll say `It's not working, parliament is in a state of complete gridlock,'" the diplomat speculated before Musharraf's departure.
Political analyst Aqil Shah believed Musharraf was seeking a "carte-blanche licence" from the US during his nine-day trip there to deal sternly with the opposition.
"Once he has a pat on the back from them he can come back and deal with the opposition more firmly," Shah said.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in