Pakistan's former prime minister Nawaz Sharif stepped up his attack on President Pervez Musharraf on Saturday, suggesting he could be hanged while addressing thousands of protesters outside the presidency. “We asked you to quit with honor after the election but you didn't,” Sharif told the crowd, referring to US ally Musharraf, who overthrew him in a 1999 coup. “Now people have given a new judgment for you ... they want you to be held accountable,” he said in the early hours of Saturday. The crowd, officially estimated at up to 20,000, chanted, “hang Musharraf” as it listened to the two time former prime minister's fiery speech. “Is hanging only for politicians?” asked Sharif, referring to former prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, hanged by a military dictator in 1979. “These blood-sucking dictators must be held accountable.” The demonstration, a few hundred meters from the presidency and parliament buildings, marked the climax of an almost week-long rolling protest across the country led by lawyers, though by the end they were easily outnumbered by Sharif party activists. The United States and other Western allies fear prolonged political instability in the turbulent nuclear-armed Muslim nation will play into the hands of Islamist militants and undermine the US-led campaign against terrorism. Sharif has called for Musharraf to be tried for treason for tearing up the constitution during a brief spell of emergency rule late last year and for the coup nearly nine years ago. Helped by Saudi Arabia, Sharif was allowed back from exile late last year as Musharraf's grip on power slipped following a clash with the judiciary. His party came second in an election in February that resulted in defeat for pro-Musharraf parties, and brought to power a coalition government led by the Pakistan People's Party of assassinated former prime minister Benazir Bhutto. Pakistan's main ruling party, meanwhile, said Saturday it will reinstate judges ousted by President Pervez Musharraf only after it has overcome legal obstacles, a day after its rivals joined a huge rally pressing for their immediate restoration. Reinstating the judges could hasten the political demise of Musharraf, a stalwart US ally who seized power in a 1999 coup. Failure to do so could sink the new coalition government, triggering turmoil in a country already threatened by economic woes and Islamic militants. “We will restore the judges, but according to the law,” said Rehman Malik, a leading figure in the party of assassinated former prime minister Benazir Bhutto. “Nothing will be done which could create another constitutional crisis.” However, critics are accusing it of shielding the unpopular president at the behest of Washington. Malik pointed to a little-noted clause inserted into a budget bill put before Parliament on Thursday to underline his party's commitment to the judges. The clause proposes raising the maximum number of judges in the Supreme Court from 16 to 29. Zardari has sought the change so that the judges installed by Musharraf since the purge can hold onto their jobs – a prospect that could dissuade them from siding with any legal challenge from Musharraf. “I think people are understanding that we are moving in the correct direction,” Malik said. “We know the aspirations of the nation, we will fulfill them.”
