It is too early to assume that Pakistan’s politicians will impeach President Musharraf, as they have flamboyantly declared they have formed a pact to do. But the figure with the strongest cards in this round is Nawaz Sharif, the former Prime Minister and an uncomfortable figure even by the standards of Pakistan’s history.

The best aspect of the drama is that the army, under its new chief, is standing back, although it will want a say in Musharraf’s successor. The worst is that the battle is playing out between a couple of unelected barons, not on the floor of Parliament, and that the vacuum is prompting violence to rise and the economy to worsen.

The most likely result, if you have to hazard a guess through the noise and dust, is that Pakistan saves itself yet again from disintegration into rival clans but that when Musharraf goes his successor is even less disposed to help the US and Britain to fight terrorism, progress in Afghanistan, or make Pakistan a normal and prosperous country. “It’s just like British politics – we’re all sitting in our houses, phoning each other and trying to get rid of the leader.” That was one observation from Islamabad yesterday. The past two days have been a game of bluff as the two main political parties in the governing coalition try to convince Musharraf that they have the votes to impeach him.

On Wednesday the late Benazir Bhutto’s left-wing Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), led by her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, and the conservative Pakistan Muslim League, Nawaz branch (PML-N), led by Sharif, announced that they had the two-thirds majority of Parliament to impeach Musharraf.

Maybe. But it was not clear yesterday that they really had enough votes; if they did, it was by fewer than a dozen. Under the Constitution they need at least 295 seats of the combined total of the Senate (100 seats) and the National Assembly (342 seats). Even while that is uncertain, they have formed a joint commission to draw up charges against Musharraf. Those may include the assertion that his self-choreographed reelection in September was unconstitutional.

But it does not really matter what is on the charge sheet. They are trying to put pressure on him to resign, to avoid the supposed humiliation of impeachment.

They’ll be lucky. He shows every sign of digging in, announcing that he will fight the charges. If the parties fail to get enough votes, then his position will be stronger, for a while. But he has so few allies that it is hard to see how he can exercise any authority.

If he does go, what then? Parliament would have to pick a new President. The PPP has more seats in the Assembly, and Zardari has let it be known that he fancies the post. But it is impossible to see Sharif agreeing to this. They disagree, too, on reinstalling the judges whom Musharraf sacked when they were about to challenge his reelection. Sharif wants them back, reckoning that they support many of his interests. Zardari fears that the judges would overturn the amnesty against corruption charges that Musharraf extended to him and Bhutto before her death.

In all this, Sharif is in a far stronger position than Zardari. This week he is getting exactly what he wants – an alliance to get rid of his archenemy Musharraf (who deposed him in the 1999 coup). Zardari, who has been in on-off talks with Musharraf, has been bounced into helping. Sharif’s party also runs Punjab, nearly two thirds of Pakistan by population and wealth. He enjoys some personal support, despite nine years of exile, whereas Zardari, in the absence of his wife, is widely disliked. The army’s new chief, General Ashfaq Kiyani, has deliberately tried to take it out of politics but the rising violence may drag it back in. If senior officers did express a preference it would not be for Zardari, whom they appear to dislike intensely. In any case, the army has traditionally worked more closely with Sharif’s party. If Musharraf goes, Sharif is in a strong position to try to force early elections and take power.

The vacuum is already damaging the economy, after fuel and food prices posed an unexpected shock. It also threatens Britain’s and the US’s efforts to help, and undermines Musharraf’s considerable efforts against the Taleban in the West.

Sharif (through his party, even if he did not claim high office himself) might suggest the appearance of stability. But his earlier tenure was plagued with allegations of corruption, while he courted religious parties and helped to foster the rise of the Taleban. Yet Zardari is too weak to be a desirable alternative for foreign governments. This leaves them mourning Bhutto; willing to see Musharraf stay a bit longer; hoping that the PPP can find better candidates; and working out how to deal with a Sharif-led government, if that is all that is eventually on offer.

Times Recommends

• Police beg us for food. What hope is there?
• Moral darkness that engulfed Baby P
• More to Advent than cheap chocolate