The honeymoon lasted six weeks but Pakistan's two main political parties have decided to go their separate ways, writes Graham Usher in Islamabad Six weeks after it came together Pakistan's new coalition government has fallen apart. At a charged press conference in Islamabad on 12 May former prime minister Nawaz Sharif said ministers from his Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) Party would be tendering their resignations to current Prime Minister Youssef Raza Gilani, whose Pakistan People's Party (PPP) is the largest in the coalition. "We will not be a part of any conspiracy to strengthen the dictatorship," said a red faced Sharif. For a country wracked by Islamic and nationalist insurgencies and gripped by severe economic and energy crises the implosion in government has been met with despair across all social classes, not least because the PML-N held the crucial economic ministries. Yet, by the time it came, all knew Sharif's decision was inevitable. It was to do with the same issue that had brought the PML-N into the coalition on 9 March: reinstatement of 60 senior judges President (and then General) Pervez Musharraf had sacked last November under emergency rule -- almost certainly because Pakistan's Supreme Court was about to rule invalid his presidential "election" the month before. At their 9 March union the two parties pledged to restore the deposed judges, courtesy of a parliamentary resolution, within 30 days of the federal government being formed. Both were aware of the iconic status the judges issue has assumed in the public psyche. The deposed judges included Iftikhar Mohamed Chaudhry, Pakistan's chief justice. Musharraf's botched efforts to remove him last year triggered a mass, lawyer- led movement against military rule, forcing Musharraf to step down as army chief. Reinstatement of the judges was one of the main reasons pro-Musharraf parties took such a beating in 18 February general elections. It was perhaps the sole reason the PML-N won so big in Punjab, Pakistan's largest and richest province. Yet despite agreement on the principle of reinstatement neither the PPP nor the PML-N could agree on the means -- despite 42 days of negotiations, two missed deadlines and "crisis summits" between Sharif and PPP chairperson Asif Ali Zardari in Dubai and London. On the contrary, the more the two parties talked the more the differences grew. The PML-N insisted the judges could be restored via a parliamentary resolution followed by an executive order, as agreed in the 9 March meeting with the PPP. Zardari, however, said reinstatement would require an act of parliament since there were legal matters -- like Musharraf's appointments of 17 new Supreme Court judges to replace the deposed ones -- that have to be accommodated. Sharif said accommodation was tantamount to granting legal cover to Musharraf's state of emergency last year. But the emergency was "unlawful, unconstitutional and shameful," said Sharif. But beneath the surface divide lies a deeper one. Reinstatement of the deposed judges will mean a new confrontation with Musharraf, now a civilian president. A reconstituted Supreme Court will almost certainly hear petitions against his presidential election and declaration of emergency, and will likely rule them illegal. This is precisely what Sharif wants. "What kind of justice is this that one man [Musharraf] can do away with 60 judges? When there's a proper democracy, a parliament, how can one man do it?" he asked in Islamabad. The PPP fears a clash with the president will mean a clash with his backers: the army, Washington and the new judiciary he has installed. Sources say the army has sent messages to Sharif to "lay off" Musharraf. US Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher crashed the Zardari-Sharif parley in London warning both men to agree a formula on the judges and "not to take measures that could push the government into a direct confrontation with Mr Musharraf," according to a PPP official quoted in the Wall Street Journal. In Islamabad Sharif denied there had been any American pressure on him. In any case "we don't take any outside pressures," he said. The PPP has long believed the government in Pakistan cannot survive without accommodating Washington and the army. It is also wary a reconstituted judiciary may rule illegal the amnesty Musharraf granted Zardari and his wife, Benazir Bhutto, last year on a raft of corruption cases. That's why Zardari wants Musharraf diminished in authority but kept as president and the judges restored to their chairs but curbed in their powers. "We need to be sure that we don't plunge Pakistan into another constitutional crisis that will lead to further instability and chaos," said Information Minister Sherry Rehman. Instability and chaos is what lies ahead. In Islamabad Sharif said although his party were resigning their ministerial seats it would "not yet sit in the opposition". The PPP has said all but the Finance portfolios will be kept vacant in the hope that the PML- N can be "won back". But few expect the post-separation camaraderie to last. On 17 May Pakistan's powerful lawyers' movement will decide its response to the government's failure to reinstate the judges. Some are calling for a "long march" on Islamabad, akin to the long, mass motorcades that saw Chaudhry restored to his position last year. Sharif has said his party will join the lawyers' protests. The PPP cannot do so -- for the lawyers are now marching against its government no less than they were Musharraf's.
