It has struggled to build an international investment bank and lacks strategic direction.

ECONOMIST: German banking: Built in Bavaria | The

Mitt Romney called the President a weak President who lacks clear direction, and Tim Pawlenty invoked the birth certificate controversy and asked what planet the President is from.

WHITEHOUSE: Press Briefing

The Chirac they describe lacks the degree of clear direction and application to haul a country as complex as France on to a fresh track away from its old feather-bedded, statist ways.

ECONOMIST: French politics

But our correspondent says the PPP may find Mr Sharif to be an uncomfortably powerful figure to have in opposition at a time when the country lacks a sense of political direction.

BBC: Plea for Pakistan coalition unity

On the right, meanwhile - and in business - there are many who applaud the president's apparent change of direction but fear he lacks the will to see it to a conclusion.

BBC: France economy: Francois Hollande does business