What is really going on in Pakistan?

By Dean Nelson

Who is Nawaz Sharif?

In May 2013, Nawaz Sharif made a remarkable return to power with a landslide general election victory – which gave him a large majority in Pakistan's National Assembly.

He had been ousted in a coup by General Pervez Musharraf in 1999, jailed, and then exiled to Saudi Arabia – where he lived as a guest of the king, but was regarded by diplomats as a spent force.

His victory was bad news for General Musharraf and to some extent for the army: it was seen as an overwhelming mandate for civilian, democratic government and the military to step further back from the country's politics.

The election was broadly welcomed by European Union observers who said there was an "overall acceptance of the outcome" despite a lack of transparency poor counting procedures in some constituencies.

Why are there still protests against him?

Despite winning the provincial assembly elections in Khyber Pukhtunkhwa, Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehreek e Insaf (PTI) complained of ballot rigging at national level and that the 35 seats it won did not reflect how people had voted. His party increased the volume of its protest over the issue earlier this year and it coincided with growing concern in the Pakistan Army over Mr Sharif's conciliatory attempts to open dialogue with India and his "humiliation" of General Musharraf – the generals fear that a treason conviction of their former chief and dictator would be a humiliation for the entire military and want the charges to disappear.

The protests began with a march to Islamabad from the eastern city of Lahore on the country's Independence Day, August 14. A day later the demonstrators marched to the capital to try to oust Mr Sharif over alleged election fraud.

Once in the capital, the protesters camped out near the parliament, pushing their demands.

Three people were killed over the weekend in riots.

Pakistani anti-government protesters stormed the state TV building on Monday, forcing the channel briefly off the air as they clashed with police and pushed further into a sprawling government complex in the capital, Islamabad, in an effort to reach the prime minister's residence. Mr Sharif met the army chief General Raheel Sharif on Monday to discuss the crisis, military sources said.

What do the military think?

Muttering within the military over Nawaz Sharif's "failure" to take the top brass "into confidence" before making overtures to India's new prime minister, the Hindu nationalist leader Narendra Modi, reinforced a feeling that he was challenging their traditional control over foreign policy.

Now with the capital's main avenues in the hands of thousands of club and slingshot-wielding supporters of Imran Khan and the Muslim sect leader Tahirul Qadri, both of whom have support within the military, Mr Sharif suddenly needs the army's support.

What happens next?

By urging both the government and the protesters to refrain from using force, the army has left Mr Sharif to sweat. If he orders paramilitary troops to shoot to protect the National Assembly, he risks an army intervention to restore peace in the national interest. If he dissolves his government and calls fresh elections – which some supporters say he may yet reluctantly do – he risks losing power or returning with a weaker government and the ignominy of having been bullied into submission by a few thousand protesters.

The strong mandate he won in last year's election has already been effectively overthrown by a charismatic former cricketer and a few even-handed statements by General Raheem Sharif, his army chief.

Nawaz Sharif is due to address both houses of parliament on Tuesday in an apparent effort to show that he is firmly in control.