Pakistan lawyers to resume street protests

LAHORE- Pakistani lawyers vowed Saturday to stage massive street protests next month unless the government meets its pledge to reinstate judges purged by President Pervez Musharraf.
The threat from the lawyers, whose tireless protests helped undermine Musharraf's grip on power last year, raises the stakes in Pakistan's protracted power struggle.
Musharraf, a stalwart U.S. ally, imposed emergency rule and cleared out the Supreme Court in November to halt legal challenges to his re-election.
A new government composed of some of his fiercest opponents took office six weeks ago and promised to reinstate the justices, casting doubt on Musharraf's political survival.
But it has missed two self-imposed deadlines to do so and appears to be unraveling over the issue _ a process that could accelerate in the face of protests.
On Saturday, lawyers' leaders set a deadline of their own, announcing after a meeting in the eastern city of Lahore that they would mount a “long march" in support of the judges on June 10.
A committee will work out the details, but senior lawyer Hamid Khan said the lawyers would likely converge in front of the Parliament building in the capital, Islamabad.
Aitzaz Ahsan, another leader, said the march would be preceded by three conventions starting on May 24. He said ousted Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry would be the principal guest.
Ahsan said it was up to lawmakers to forestall the demonstrations.
“We don't want to stop Parliament with this long march," Ahsan said at a news conference, flanked by boisterous, black-suited lawyers chanting slogans including “Go Musharraf, go!"
“If the judges are restored, we will light candles from Khyber to Karachi" in celebration, he said.
The decision raises the likelihood of more instability in Pakistan, just as it grapples with mounting economic problems as well as Western pressure to tackle Islamic militancy.
The biggest party in the coalition, led by Asif Ali Zardari, insists it wants to restore the judges and turn its attention to other matters, including trimming Musharraf's powers. But Zardari is at loggerheads with its main partner, former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, over just how to do it.
Sharif this week pulled his ministers from the Cabinet to protest the delay and said his party would support any lawyers' protests. Still, he vowed to prop up the government from the outside.
The issue is bedeviled by complex legal and political calculations.
Zardari, the widower of slain ex-Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, wants to retain judges installed by Musharraf after the November purge and follow the restoration of the old judges with a raft of reforms to prevent them from interfering in politics.
Time-consuming legislation is required to protect that course from legal challenges that could cast the country into institutional chaos, Zardari's party argues.
But Sharif insists that since the ouster of the judges was illegal, they can be restored with a simple order from the prime minister - a point of view shared by many prominent lawyers.
Zardari insists he can still persuade Sharif to return to the government fold. But his reluctance to force a showdown with Musharraf has stirred talk that he is preparing to realign himself with the president if the coalition collapses.
Lawyers took to the streets in March last year, when Musharraf first tried to fire the chief justice.
Their protests galvanized the country's fragmented opposition and prompted a chorus of calls for an end to the rule of Musharraf, who had seized power in a 1999 military coup.
Musharraf imposed a state of emergency in November and swept the judges away just as they were considering the legality of his re-election to another five-year presidential term.
The former army strongman accused Chaudhry of corruption and conspiring against his plan to guide Pakistan back to democracy. But the crackdown only deepened his unpopularity and contributed to the political eclipse of his allies.