Pakistan govt in crisis after a year in office

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ISLAMABAD, Mar 25 (AFP): Pakistan's government marks one year in office Wednesday still battling to contain the political and security meltdown threatening to engulf the frontline state in the US-led "war on terror."
Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani was sworn in on March 25, 2008 amid hopes democracy would rise from the ashes of military rule and the aftermath of the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.
A year on and insurgents are still fighting government forces, the economy has needed an international bailout and the nation's political leaders are at loggerheads.
"Upon coming into power, the government was faced with enormous political, economical and security challenges," Gilani acknowledged Wednesday.
"The high expectations held by the nation, having been through nearly a decade of military rule coupled with difficult times, meant the government was always going to be in for a fair amount of criticism."
Gilani's government, sworn in on March 31, 2008, hopes to secure a record aid package from the United States, which is desperate to stabilise a country whose border with Afghanistan is a safe haven for Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
Money and military hardware are the only way the weak administration can counter Pakistan's deepening troubles, officials say, in a country where bomb blasts and suicide attacks have killed 645 people over the past 12 months.
"Democratic institutions are functioning in the country but... the leadership gives no indication that they can handle economic, political and law and order issues effectively," said political analyst Hasan Askari.
Dreams of a national unity government vanished when Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-N walked out in August over the government's refusal to restore chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, sacked under emergency rule in 2007.
Gilani's flagship achievement-reinstating Chaudhry-amounted to little more than a dramatic U-turn designed to pull the nation back from the brink of chaos.
Although Gilani announced the decision, army chief of staff Ashfaq Kayani and US pressure were widely credited as the decisive factors.