LAHORE, Pakistan - Pakistani lawyers vowed Saturday to stage massive street protests next month unless the new government meets its pledge to reinstate judges purged by President Pervez Musharraf.
The threat from the lawyers, whose 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 after elections 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 the coalition appears to be unraveling over the issue - a process that could accelerate in the face of protests.
On Saturday, lawyers' leaders announced they would mount a "long march" in support of the judges June 10. Senior lawyer Hamid Khan said the lawyerswould likely converge in front of the Parliament building in the capital, Islamabad.
The government said the lawyers were entitled to peacefully express dissent.
"We are not a totalitarian government. We will neither stop them nor block coverage if they march," Information Minister Sherry Rehman said.
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 disagrees with main coalition partner, former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, over 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.
Zardari, the widower of slain ex-Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, wants to retain judges installed by Musharraf after the purge and follow the restoration of the old judges with a raft of time-consuming changes to prevent legal challenges to the move.
But Sharif insists that since the ouster of the judges was illegal, they can be restored with a simple order from the prime minister.
Front Section, Pages 15 on 05/18/2008