Under fire president Asif Ali Zardari tries to ease public anger amid fears he could be overthrown
Saeed Shah in Islamabad
Pakistan's government faces the threat of social unrest or even military takeover after its shambolic response to the floods that have devastated the country, leaving 1,600 people dead and 2 million homeless, say analysts.
Fears that Asif Ali Zardari, the president, could be overthrown - possibly through an intervention by the army - have grown as the government's failure to adequately tackle the crisis has fuelled long-held grievances.
"The powers that be, that is the military and bureaucratic establishment, are mulling the formation of a national government, with or without the PPP [the ruling Pakistan People's party]," said Najam Sethi, editor of the weekly Friday Times. "I know this is definitely being discussed. There is a perception in the army that you need good governance to get out of the economic crisis and there is no good governance."
Rescuers are struggling to help the 14 million people affected across the country, with fresh flood warnings today forcing even more to flee the city of Jacobabad. But the impact of the disaster will be felt throughout Pakistan's 170m population.
The agricultural heartland has been wiped out, which will cause spiralling food prices and shortages. Many roads and irrigation canals have been destroyed, along with electricity supply infrastructure.
"The immediate risk is one of food riots," said Marie Lall, an Asia expert at Chatham House. "There is already great resentment in Swat and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province where people had to be cleared during the government offensive. Now there is the threat of social unrest as various factions, families and ethnic groups compete with each other in the event of a breakdown in government."
The World Bank estimates that crops worth $1bn (£640m) have been ruined and the Pakistani finance secretary warned today that the disaster would cut the country's growth in half.
The government may have to spend $1.7bn on reconstruction, and has said it will have to divert expenditure from badly needed development programmes.
With the economy currently surviving on an IMF bailout, experts predict that another may be necessary. Experts believe that the floods could now knock 2 percentage points off projected economic growth for this year.
US and European diplomats are gravely concerned about the situation, as Pakistan is crucial in the fight against al-Qaida and the war in neighbouring Afghanistan.
Cathy Ashton, EU foreign policy chief, said the west could not afford to abandon the country: "Pakistan is faced with so many issues, not just floods, terror, development, India. It's in the EU's interest to have a stable and prosperous Pakistan."
Zardari, who left the country after the floods began and continued on his trip to France and Britain even when the scale of the disaster became apparent, is the focus of much of the anger. Despite the outcry, he is to go ahead with a visit to a regional summit in Russia next week. A spokesman said the president had cut the planned two-day trip to "a couple of hours". Only the courts could legally dismiss him but, as his PPP is a minority government reliant on coalition partners, behind-the-scenes military pressure on those partners could bring it down, while keeping parliament in place, said Sethi.
With the government overwhelmed by the scale of the disaster, Islamic groups, including extremist organisations such as Jamaat-ud-Dawa, have stepped into the gap. The military has also distributed aid in areas where locals complain that government help is almost entirely absent.
"If the military takes over now, I can assure you that it will be the end of Pakistan, an end which will be punctuated by a very bloody civil war," said Asad Sayeed, an analyst based in Karachi. "Pakistan is a very divided country right now."
Pakistan has lurched from crisis to crisis in its 63-year history. The break-up of the country in 1971 can be linked to another natural disaster, when authorities responded slowly to a devastating cyclone. A secessionist movement in East Pakistan capitalised on public anger to successfully fight for independence as Bangladesh.
In the flood-hit areas, people are bewildered by the government's response, with accusations and conspiracy theories abounding. At the side of the Indus river in Sukkur town, Sindh province, shopowner Ali Sher gave a scathing reaction to promises of aid.
"They [the government] want to drown Sukkur," he said. "They want to show some bodies, so they can ask for more aid from other countries. They are after dollars."
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