| Pakistan's borderlands: the country's leaders argue it must maintain good relations with the Taliban regime in Afghanistan |
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After decades of what Pakistan's finance minister, Shaukat Aziz, terms "stop-go policies" investors and international donor agencies are anxiously waiting to see if the government can make good on its promise to transform reform into stability and growth.
The countdown has begun: general Pervez Musharraf, who seized power from prime minister Nawaz Sharif in a two-hour bloodless coup nearly two years ago, has promised to restore democracy by October of next year. Musharraf says he intends to "ensure continuity" by staying on in his executive role, overseeing events from behind the scenes, presumably on the Turkish model.
Musharraf and his team will have their hands full trying to restore investor confidence in a country that was on the brink of default according to Aziz, with talk of isolation and a total breakdown in expenditure controls and relationships with bilateral and multilateral agencies.