Pakistan simmers

The eventual balance of power in Pakistan may depend on the extent of instability over the next few weeks.

Campaigning for Pakistan's general election, now less than three weeks away, has been low-key as candidates fear militant attacks and citizens worry about rising prices and power cuts rather than politics. Nationwide violence tied to militancy has already killed 370 people this month. Nevertheless, Asif Ali Zardari, the new co-chairman of the Pakistan People's Party and widower of the late former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, is preparing to step up his campaign at the end of a 40-day period of mourning for Bhutto on Thursday.

Poisonous inter-party relations may shape that election campaign and bode ill for cooperation between the PPP -– the likely winner of the February 18 election -- and President Pervez Musharraf after the poll. Zardari's leadership is divisive and two major groups seem to be emerging within the PPP. They fall under Zardari, who is leading anti-Musharraf forces; and Vice-Chairman Makhdoom Amin Fahim, who would be willing to share power with Musharraf. To ensure electoral victory, these differences are not likely to be expressed in public before the elections as both sides want to benefit from a wave of sympathy for Bhutto, but they are certain to become more acute after the elections. Anyone seen to be creating rifts within the party or challenging the PPP leadership would risk undermining their own political position.

In the meantime, religious political parties are deeply divided -- despite a shared anti-western rhetoric. Conflicts between them reflect deep ethnic and sectarian divisions. It is unlikely that these parties could act together to provide stable support for a new government, or to offer coherent opposition.