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Rift in Pak ruling coalition widens

Musharraf successor to be elected on Sept 6, Sharif pushes back deadline to restore judges, PPP lawmakers nominate Zardari for president

AFP, Islamabad
Pakistan's ruling coalition was riven by divisions despite crunch talks yesterday, raising fears for the government's ability to tackJe Thliban bloodshed after a massive bombing killed 64 people.
Former premier Nawaz Sharif pushed back his deadline for the coalition to restore judges sacked by former president Pervez Musharraf, prolonging the squabbles that have prevented it from focusing on the rising militant threat.
Pak Election Commission announced on Friday that the presidential poll would be held on September 6, seen as important
step towards creating the political stability needed to take on the militants.
Lawmakers from party of slain former Pakistan premier Benazir Bhutto on Friday unanimously nominated her widower, Asif Ali Zardari, to run for president, a government minister said.
"Zardari thanked Pakistan •People's Party of which he is die co-chairman and said he will announce his decision within the next 24 hours," information minister Sherry Rehman told reporters in Islamabad.
Thursday s bombing at a huge arms factory was the second suicide attack since Musharraf stood down on Monday, intensifying the
pressure on his opponents to show they can govern the world's only Islamic nuclear power.
Troops killed 21 militants, including two more suicide bombers, in clashes near the Afghan border in defiance of threats by the Taliban to launch more attacks if military operations against the rebels are not halted.
The two main parties - - linked to Sharif and the assassinated exprime minister Benazir Bhutto --failed to find common ground during talks on Friday on how to replace Musharraf and how to reinstate dozens of judges he sacked.
Sharif said a parliamentary resolution to bring back the judges would be introduced in parliament on Monday and that there would then be two daysof debates.
'W&Lhesdayshofildbeth^dayfor reinstatement of judges," Sharif told a joint news conference with the leaders of two smaller parties in the coalition who were mediating on the dispute.
But there was no immediate comment from Asif Ali Zardari, Bhutto's widower and the leader of her party. A resolution would need his support but he has shown no sign of keeping the pledge he made in May to restore thejudges.
Critics have suggested that Zardari is against the return of crusading chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry because he could overturn an amnesty on corruption charges that allowed Bhutto and Zardari to return from exile.
Pakistan's Election Commission announced on Friday that the presidential poll would be held on September 6, seen as important step towards creating the political stability needed to take on the militants.
"Presidential elections wall be held on September 6. The nomination papers can be filed from August 26," election commission secretary Kanwar Dilshad told a news conference.
Under Pakistan's constitution, the new president must be elected by a simultaneous sitting of the upper and lower houses of the National Parliament and the country's four provincial assemblies, he said.
Nomination papers will be scrutinised on August 28 and the final date for any withdrawals will 'be August 30, Dilshad added.
Zardari's party has said it wants him to stand for the post.
But the coalition’s feuding on the two issues has worried Western nations looking for continuity after Musharrafs departure, and distracted the government's attention from the increasingly brazen militant insurgency.
"Similar attacks will be carried out in other cities of Pakistan," said Maulvi Omar, a spokesman for Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, the umbrella group of the country's Taliban Islamist militants.
He said Thursday's daring attack outside Pakistan's main defence industry factory, on the road from Islamabad to the northwestern border, was in response to military operations against the militants.
Police said Friday they had arrested a suspect who was to have been the third bomber in Thursday's
attack. Police also recovered a suicide jacket that the suspect had left in the toilet of amosque close to the factory.
In the latest violence, troops
, OReipi^P9avehi$*^ to-stop at a checkpoint in the northwestern town of Hangu, causing the-vehicle to explode and killing 16 militants, an army statement said.
Two were suicide bombers, probably foreign militants, it said.
Another five militants were killed in the tribal region of Bajaur, bordering Afghanistan, where the government says that more than 500 people have been killed and 130,000 displaced in two weeks of fighting with militants.
While there have been frequent allegations that at least parts of the nation's powerful intelligence service has helped support the militants, the military has also been waging a tough campaign against them.
But the military campaign requires a level of political support that has been lacking because of the bickeringbetween the parties.
The possibility of a coalition split has worried the United States and other countries who want a stable Pakistan, though there was support for Islamabad from UN chief Ban Ki-moon and US President George W Bush after the attacks.