By Steve Macko, ERRI Risk Analyst

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Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who won a commanding mandate in elections that were held a year ago, has used his clout in parliament to scrap constitutional rules used by presidents in the past to dismiss elected governments -- often at the bidding of the military. He has also tried to consolidate his power by hastily amending the constitution to allow party leaders to expel members of parliament who fail to toe the party line.

Yet predictions of doom, including possible military intervention, still surface in Pakistan, where the generals have held power for 24 years of its 50-year history. After about a year in power, Sharif's government is grappling with a tide of sectarian violence involving Sunni and Shi'ite Moslem militants in populous Punjab province, along with a resurgence of ethnic killings in the southern port city of Karachi.

The daily death-count doesn't help Sharif's drive to rescue a crumbling economy and turn Pakistan into a new economic powerhouse. He has offered package after package of reforms and incentives designed to revive stagnant industry and stimulate export-led growth, while simultaneously striving to meet International Monetary Fund demands for fiscal restraint.

If he fails to turn the economy round and deliver on his promises of prosperity, many commentators say his government may be short-lived despite its commanding parliamentary majority.

Hamid Gul, a retired lieutenant-general who as chief of the Inter-Services Intelligence network, was deeply involved in the Afghan guerrilla war against Soviet occupation in the 1980s, believes military and civilian governments have both failed.

Gul said, "I think this entire system will have to go. Now the time has come, because we have tried everything, every conceivable system. There have been various brands of martial law, various brands of democracy, different experiments with the economic system." Gul sees forces of change "simmering under the surface" and advocates for a revolutionary Islamic remedy based on his own vision of the purpose for which Pakistan was created.

He said, "I feel the forces of the status quo are now very weak. They are moth-eaten from inside. They are depraved. They have lent themselves to moral corruption, they have lost the moral foundation and I think they will not be able to withstand one whiff of a revolutionary change which is in the offing...They are there...powerful cross-currents for change. And I think that time is not far when they shall express themselves. I only hope they don't express themselves violently."

(c)Copyright, EmergencyNet News Service, 1998. All rights reserved.