Master Planner, Asif Ali Zardari... what's next??

It starts with a deal with the country's most powerful institution, the army. Mr Zardari's government will protect their interests, taking into account the army's foreign strategic concerns and making sure its share of the national budget is well stocked.

The government will ensure a steady supply of aid and equipment from the US to meet the army's needs to keep up with its giant neighbour, India.

In return, the army will go all out to defeat the militants in Pakistan's tribal areas and keep out of national politics, party insiders say.

The PPP would be able to offer the one thing the United States most wants, all-out war on the Taleban and their al-Qaeda associates using Pakistan's full resources.

For this, the PPP has made it clear to the US and the army that it needs as much power as possible, and that means having PPP people as president and prime minister.

'Future guaranteed'

It also means scrapping any talk of reducing the power of the president. "It would be counter productive to our aims for the future of the party," says a confidante.

So the obvious next question is how the PPP can use all of this to shore up its electoral strength.

"The future could be guaranteed for the next generation of PPP leadership, if we play it right," says a party insider.

This would be done by using the massive aid Pakistan expects to receive in return for its "good performance" in the "war on terror".

The plan would be to spend most of the aid in deeply rural areas where Pakistan's closest political battles are fought - the southern Punjab, eastern North West Frontier Province and northern Sindh province.

The linchpin in the plans is Mr Zardari. "If he can maintain this position and ensure the plan is carried out, Bibi [Ms Bhutto] will have won even in death," a PPP insider says.

The broad outlines of the plan are simple enough. But there are reasons to be sceptical.

In Pakistan, what can go wrong generally does go wrong.

Wow, It wasn't that long ago that the then President MusharrafPresident Musharraf and Benazir BhuttoBenazir Bhutto were working on a grand master plan that fell apart with her assassination.

Mr Zardari's military hopes rest on the assumption - not universally shared - that the army can defeat the Islamist militants, and that it will co-operate with the PPP after years of mutual mistrust.

As far as popular support goes, the PPP has got its work cut out to reverse the country's ever-worsening economic woes.