Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan’s president-in-uniform, is facing the most serious challenge to his authority since he seized power in a military coup in 1999. Weakened by unexpectedly strong opposition to his crude attempt to sack the country’s top judge and by widespread anger at his subsequent failure to prevent a bloodbath on the streets of Karachi this month, he may not be able to ride out the storm. The decisions he makes now will be critical not just to his own chances of survival but also to those of Pakistan itself.

Gen Musharraf’s stock is in free fall. The crisis that may yet unseat him began on March 9 when he provoked nationwide protests by unceremoniously suspending Iftikhar Chaudhary, the chief justice of the Supreme Court. The judge had alarmed the president’s advisers by taking an independent stand on a number of controversial cases. They feared his taste for publicity could jeopardise the general’s re-election plans.