Their display of unity against President Pervez Musharraf further clouds the leader's political future.
Asif Ali Zardari, husband of slain opposition leader Bhutto,
and former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, whose government was ousted in
Musharraf's 1999 coup, announced their pact after talks at a resort town in the
foothills of the Himalayas.
Through the pact, they seek to reinstate the judges fired by
the president and to strip Musharraf of certain
powers.
In the capital, police fired tear gas at protesters who
gathered outside the residence of the deposed Supreme Court chief justice to
demand his reinstatement.
"The coalition partners are ready to form the
government," Sharif said at a news conference, reading from a joint
statement, according to the Associated Press.
Zardari said his party had signed the agreement in honor of
Bhutto, who was assassinated in a suicide attack on Dec. 27, and her desire to
put Pakistan
back on "the road to democracy."
Bhutto's Pakistan
People's Party won 120 seats in the new 342-seat National Assembly, followed by
Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-N with 90. The former ruling party aligned with
Musharraf won 51 seats.
The two largest parties, both moderate and secular, have
vowed to form a broad-based government, raising Western hopes of stability and
renewed commitment to fighting al-Qaida and Taliban militants.
However, they are devoting most of their energy to cutting
back Musharraf's sweeping powers -- a course the former military strongman
seems unlikely to accept meekly.
Zardari and Sharif declared a breakthrough on two key
issues: the makeup of the coalition and the future of the judiciary.
The Jamaiat-e-ulema-e-Islam, a major Islamic party, also has
announced it agreed "in principle" to join the coalition.
Sharif said his party would be part of a federal coalition
led by the Pakistan People's Party, which is expected to name its candidate for
prime minister this week.
In return, Zardari agreed that the new parliament would pass
a resolution within 30 days of convening to reinstate dozens of judges fired by
Musharraf after he declared emergency rule on Nov. 3, 2007.
The leaders agreed that the judiciary would be restored
"as it was on Nov. 2," suggesting that ousted Supreme Court Chief
Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry would return to his post.
On Sunday, about 600 demonstrators marched on Chaudhry's Islamabad residence --
where he has been under house arrest for four months -- chanting "We want
freedom."
Police fired tear gas after some protesters tried to cut
through barbed wire at concrete barricades that block the entrance to the
house.
Several thousand people, including labor union members and
journalists, gathered peacefully in the southern city of Karachi also demanding that Musharraf step
down.
The White House considers Musharraf a favored ally in the fight
against militants aligned with al-Qaida and the Taliban who have regrouped
in Pakistan, but Musharraf has recently confronted a wave of public disapproval
in his country.
He had no comment on the accord, The New York Times reported.
As of late Sunday, the U.S. State Department and the White House also had no
comment.
Zardari had seemed to stall on Sharif's insistence that the
judges be reinstated, apparently out of fear that the judges would reopen
corruption cases filed against him in the 1990s, the Times reported.
He also was pressured by the United
States and United Kingdom not to agree to the
reinstatement of Chaudhry as chief justice since diplomats have criticized him for
being unpredictable on matters related to terrorism, associates told the Times.
After the joint announcement, a lawyer who is active in the
lawyers' movement that has mobilized in favor of the restoration of the judges,
Athar Minallah, said he was confident that the justices, including Chaudhry,
would be reinstated.
"I don't see any hurdle in the restoration of the
judges now," he said. "It's a positive day for democracy in this
country."
The reinstatement of the judges of the Supreme Court and
four High Courts in the provinces would represent a danger to Musharraf because
the courts would probably be presented with new petitions seeking to overturn his
re-election in October, lawyers said.
Musharraf said last week it would be a week or two more
before the new National Assembly is convened but Sharif and Zardari called for
the session to be called immediately, Reuters reported.
While the parties agreed on a coalition, questions have
arisen in Bhutto's party over its candidate for prime minister.
Zardari's deputy chairman and Bhutto's close aide, Makhdoom
Amin Fahim, has been regarded as the likely choice for the job but a delay in
nominating him has led to doubts, the AP reported.
Ahmed Mukhtar, a former commerce minister in Bhutto's
cabinet, has emerged as another contender, since Zardari himself is ineligible
as he does not hold a seat in the assembly. Mukhtar, a close friend of Zardari's,
is a top executive of the Servis Group, an industrial conglomerate based in Punjab Province.
