Supporters of Benazir Bhutto’s party shouted protests in Karachi over election results for a party linked to the president. (Max Becherer/Polaris, for The New York Times)Both the future of Mr. Musharraf and the restoration of the judges had been divisive issues for the two parties in their coalition negotiations. Some analysts had expected that instead of working with Mr. Sharif, Mr. Zardari, who leads the party with the largest number of seats in the new Parliament, would reach out to the remnants of Mr. Musharraf’s party, the Pakistan Muslim League-Q. Since the election on Monday, Mr. Sharif, the leader of the Pakistan Muslim League-N, which came in second to Mr. Zardari’s Pakistan Peoples Party, has been adamant about trying to bring impeachment proceedings against Mr. Musharraf, who removed Mr. Sharif from power in a 1999 coup. Mr. Sharif also argued for the immediate reinstatement of the judiciary, in particular the former chief justice of the Supreme Court, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, who has been under house arrest for three months. To show his solidarity with Mr. Chaudhry, Mr. Sharif joined a noisy demonstration on Thursday outside the judge’s Islamabad home. Mr. Sharif, speaking through a bullhorn to cheers, said he would make sure in the next few days that the chief justice and dozens of other judges “illegally” fired by Mr. Musharraf would be restored to the bench. Mr. Sharif then asked the protesters to disband.
Later, Mr. Chaudhry spoke from his home by mobile phone to lawyers gathering in Karachi and Lahore, calling for the reinstatement of the judges, The A.P. reported. Mr. Zardari has taken a somewhat softer line on the restoration of the judiciary, saying it should be a matter for the new Parliament. Several days after Ms. Bhutto was assassinated in December, Mr. Zardari lashed out at Mr. Musharraf’s party, accusing it of masterminding her death and calling it “the killer party.” But since the election on Monday, Mr. Zardari has taken a less hostile approach. By Wednesday he had dropped his harsh references to Mr. Musharraf and his defeated party. As the maneuvering between the political parties has intensified in the last several days, the perception has grown among Pakistanis that the Bush administration would much prefer Mr. Zardari to join forces with the followers of Mr. Musharraf than with Mr. Sharif’s.
The United States ambassador, Anne W. Patterson, met with Mr. Zardari on Wednesday at the American Embassy, an encounter that bolstered the belief among Pakistanis that Washington was in the thick of the political negotiations. Statements from the White House and the State Department encouraging a broad consensus in a new government also added to the sense that the administration was eager to try to preserve some power for Mr. Musharraf, an ally in the campaign against terrorism. Dana Perino, a White House spokeswoman, confirmed Thursday that Mr. Bush took time during a tour of African states to telephone Mr. Musharraf on Tuesday after his party’s losses in the parliamentary elections. The call was made during Mr. Bush’s flight from Rwanda to Ghana, but Ms. Perino would not say what the two leaders discussed. She said it was up to the Pakistani people to decide whether Mr. Musharraf retained his position.
Some Pakistanis warned Thursday that the United States must stand back. The leader of the opposition lawyers’ movement in Pakistan, Aitzaz Ahsan, who has been under house arrest for more than three months but is now able to speak by telephone, said he had told a visiting American diplomat on Wednesday, “The guy is history; please don’t prop him up.” He said he pointed out to the diplomat, Bryan Hunt, the United States consul general in Lahore, that Mr. Musharraf’s party had won only a small fraction of the 272 parliamentary seats. Mr. Ahsan has become a folk hero among the lawyers who opposed President Musharraf in his battle with the Supreme Court chief justice and the judiciary in general. Mr. Ahsan’s steadfast stand behind the restoration of judges appeared to be a motivating force behind the surprisingly strong showing in the elections for Mr. Sharif. Mr. Ahsan argued that in terms of the campaign against terrorism, which is Washington’s priority in Pakistan, the restoration of the judiciary and the end of Mr. Musharraf’s rule were essential. Weapons of war were not the primary ingredients for success against the Taliban and Al Qaeda, he said. “The only effective weapon is an empowered people with enforceable rights, and you can’t have those rights without an independent judiciary,” he said.
Mr. Ahsan is a senior member of the Pakistan Peoples Party, although he had a prickly relationship with Ms. Bhutto, who appeared to resent his independent streak. One of Pakistan’s most sought-after lawyers, Mr. Ahsan defended Mr. Zardari and Ms. Bhutto in court when they faced corruption charges after her first term as prime minister, and won acquittals for the couple in 18 cases between 1990 and 1993, he said. Mr. Zardari currently faces corruption charges in Switzerland. He said in an interview last week that corruption cases against him in Pakistan were still pending. Mr. Ahsan warned that if a new parliamentary coalition did not heed the call to reinstate the judiciary, he was preparing a campaign to pressure the new Parliament to do so. On March 9, the anniversary of Mr. Musharraf’s first suspension of the Supreme Court justice, Mr. Chaudhry, Mr. Ahsan said he would lead a long caravan of vehicles, coming from Lahore and other major cities, into Islamabad. The caravan would include scores of judges who had been dismissed late last year, at the same time Mr. Chaudhry was removed for a second time.
By Graham Bowley. Jane Perlez contributed reporting from Islamabad, Pakistan
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