ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistan's political crisis, which pits its president against determined foes in the country's parliament, Supreme Court and military, is likely to reach fever pitch on Monday with a confidence vote scheduled in parliament and hearings scheduled in two critical court cases.

The crisis is so intense that President Asif Zardari's administration may be willing to call early elections as soon as October, according to members of his ruling coalition and its advisers. But that may not be enough to mollify the opposition, which wants an earlier date, or the country's powerful military establishment, which is believed to be trying to force a so-called "soft coup" that would see Zardari, a critic of the military's traditional dominance of Pakistan, forced out by parliament or the courts.

The threat of an outright coup also hangs over the crisis, if the politicians cannot find a way out or the court proceedings reach absolute stalemate.

Whether the government can reach agreement with opposition leader Nawaz Sharif is unclear. Zardari's Pakistan Peoples Party doesn't want to announce elections until after voting in March for a new Senate, balloting that the PPP is widely expected to win. But Sharif would like the new elections to be in the summer, perhaps June, which would require an earlier announcement.

"There is no other option for the government to come out of the current crisis without elections," said an adviser to the PPP leadership, who spoke on condition of anonymity, because of the sensitivity of the issue, as did the other coalition members. "It is in the interests of the PPP to reach an agreement with Nawaz (Sharif)."

The PPP rules with three other major coalition partners, but the alliance is looking shaky, with two of the parties, the Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM) and the Pakistan Muslim League-Q, somewhat distancing themselves from the government.

A senior member of the coalition said that they had so far agreed internally only to a general election to be held in October. That would be just a few months before the February 2013 date when the parliament would complete its five-year term and elections would have to take place anyway.

An early election should also placate the courts and the military. A supposedly neutral caretaker government would have to be installed to oversee a three-month electioneering period.

Another coalition member said: "It is 100 percent certain that there will be elections in 2012. The only solution is elections. It doesn't matter whether they are held in June or October."

Zardari's coalition itself brought Monday's confidence vote resolution to parliament, cleverly wording it so that it asks for support not for the prime minister or even the government, but for democracy. That makes it difficult to oppose.

But the PPP's troubles in parliament are only one of the fronts in its battle for survival. The courts and the military are both maneuvering aggressively against the party's leaders, with two explosive cases coming up for hearings Monday.

The first stems from a 2007 decree by then President Pervez Musharraf that granted immunity from prosecution to Zardari and other exiled PPP politicians in an effort to persuade them to return to Pakistan to participate in elections Musharraf was being pressured to hold by the United States.