Power Cuts Fuel Pakistan's Power Struggle

Given all this, one might ask whether it was worth getting rid of Mr Musharraf. Although he too pursued an alliance with the US, he was at least personally honest, whereas Mr Zardari is widely known as “Mr Ten Per Cent”, because of his behaviour when his wife was Prime Minister in the 1990s.

If things go badly, many Pakistanis may come to regret Mr Musharraf's overthrow. But it's no good crying over spilt milk. As I found talking to ordinary people in the weeks before his resignation, his popularity had sunk so low that he could have remained in power only through ruthless repression, which would have fuelled support for the Islamists - and which the Army was not prepared to implement.

The best thing to be said about the new Government is that, after prolonged hesitation, three of the four parties forming it have moved to take “ownership” of the tougher anti-insurgent campaign that the Army has been seeking for several months. Without this political backing, it would have been difficult to get the Army to motivate its men to fight as hard as they have been doing - or in some cases, to fight at all. This in turn has impressed the US Administration, and led to promises of more US aid.

And there's the rub. On the one hand, US aid, goodwill and help in mobilising support from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, are vital to Pakistan. Surging energy prices and the slowing world economy have placed the country in a vice, with inflation soaring and power cuts lasting longer and longer as the State fails to pay the electricity authority. The authority, in turn, cannot pay for imported fuel. If things go on as they are, growing public protests could bring down a government that desperately needs hard cash, and quickly: after all, Mr Musharraf's failure to control inflation was one of the main reasons that he was hated.

On the other hand, the alliance with the US is loathed too. In the North West Frontier Province, where I have spent the past three weeks, that is true of the overwhelming majority of the population. The accusation that “Musharraf is an American slave who took US money to kill his own people” is now applied to Mr Zardari, together with the accusation of corruption. So deep is the hostility to Mr Zardari that there is even widespread (although totally baseless) talk of him having been responsible for his wife's murder. Almost 90 per cent of those who voted for Mr Zardari's PPP whom I interviewed said that they would prefer Mr Sharif as president.

This public distrust won't stop Mr Zardari becoming president, because election to that post is by members of Pakistan's elected assemblies, not the people. In those assemblies, the coalition has a solid majority.

This support, however, may prove fragile if mass discontent grows. And speaking to people in Peshawar, sweltering in 40 degree heat because of power cuts, unable to feed their children properly, it is not difficult to see how it may swell enormously in the months to come.

So the US and the European Union need quickly to provide about $1.5 billion to the Pakistani Government to pay its electricity bills and damp down the immediate cause of discontent. At the same time, despite Mr Sharif's criticism of the US-Pakistani alliance, they should do their best to maintain good relations with him, as there is a very good chance that his party will dominate the next Pakistani government. None of this makes for a very appetising choice. But as I said, it's no good crying over spilt milk - even if the milk is turning pretty smelly.