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Zardari to run for Pak presidency

AFP, Islamabad
The widower of Pakistan's assassinated former premier Benazir Bhutto has decided to run for president in the wake of Pervez Musharrafs resignation, a senior party official said yesterday.
Asif Ali Zardari on Friday won the backing of lawmakers from the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) to contest the September 6 poll to choose a successor to Musharraf, who stepped down on Monday amid the threat of impeachment.
" Mr Asif Zardari has accepted to contest the election for the office of president of Pakistan after the party unanimously drafted him to do so," PPP deputy secretary general Raza Rabbani told reporters.
Rabbani said Zardari had been chosen in part in tribute to the sacrifices of his wife, who was killed in a suicide attack at an election rally in December.
The party official said the PPR which is the main party in a fragile coalition government, had consulted its partners before announcing that Zardari was their choice to lead the nuclear-armed nation. "The coalition partners were informed about this decision and we are optimistic that the coalition will remain intact," he said.
The PPP and the party of former premier Nawaz Sharif, who was ousted by Musharraf in a 1999 coup, have been at odds over how to reinstate dozens of judges sacked by Musharraf last year.
Sharif has said he would back Zardari for president if he were to do away with the presidential power -• created by Musharraf-- to dissolve parliament.
"I have no objection over Mr Zardari contesting presidential election, if he removes the 17th amendment," Sharif told reporters at his residence after meeting the PPP delegation led by Information Minister Sherry Rehman.
Sharif said he had a firm agreement with Zardari on the restoration of judges sacked by Musharraf and clarified that neither he nor anyone from his party wanted to become president.
"The agreement says that next president will be after removing 17th amendment. The PPP will have a right to nominate its own president then,"Sharifsaid.
On the issue of the judges, Rabbani said the "judges will be restored" but said a timeframe would be announced at a later unspecified date.
The election follows the resig nation of Pervez Musharraf and comes amid a prolonged struggle ■against Islamic militants who have wreaked havoc across the nucleararmed nation in suicide bombings and fightingon the Afghan border.
A fragile coalition government comprising the PPR now led by Zardari, and the party of another former prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, is at loggerheads over how to reinstate dozens of judges sacked by Musharraf last year.
Political instability and a nosediving economy have alarmed Western nations looking for continuity after key US-ally Musharraf s departure but talks between the PPP and Sharif's party have so far failed to resolve the dispute.
Zardari is seen as a frontrunner for the presidency despite having previously denied any ambitions for the post made vacant by Musharraf s resignation in the face of impeachment charges.
"Zardari thanked Pakistan People's Party of which he is the co-chajj.map and, said he, yyjj.l announce, his decision within the , next 24 hours," Information Minister Sherry Rehman said Friday, announcing the PPP's backing for Zardari.
The fate of the 60 judges, including the chief justice, has become a
political sticking point with crucial repercussions for the coalition.
There has been no immediate comment from Zardari or the PPP on the issue. A resolution on their reinstatement would require their support, but they have shown no sign yet of keeping a pledge made in May to restore the judges.
Sharif has pushed bat k his deadline for the judges to get their jobs back until Wednesday next week, having previously threatened to quit the coalition if they were not restored by Friday.
The former premier said representatives of the two parties would draft a resolution on restoring the judges over the weekend and then introduce it in parliament on Monday, with a vote on Wednesday
Meanwhile a delegation of PPP stalwarts Saturday met Sharif in the eastern city of Lahore to apprise him on the party decision about the presidential election, party sources told AFP.
Earlier the military said troops had killed up to 35 militants in an offensive in northwestern Swat valley after a suicide attack on a police station killed six people, including two policemen.
Separately a bicycle bomb targeting a senior police official in southern Karachi city wounded four people, police said.
A double Taliban suicide bombing at Pakistan's biggest weapons factory on Thursday, the deadliest ever attack on a Pakistani military site, has put fresh pressure on the coalition to end its bickering.
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 to Pakistan.
The amnesty allowed Bhutto and Zardari to end years in exile in return for an agreement on a power-sharing deal with Musharraf, which later collapsed.
Bhutto was killed in a suicide attack at an election campaign rally in December and the parties in the current ruling coalition defeated Musharrafs allies in polls held in February.
Pakistan's election commission on Friday announced the September 6 contest for Musharrafs successor.
Under the constitution, the new president must be elected by a and joyver houses of the national parliament and the country's four provincial assemblies.
Nomination papers will be scrutinised on August 28 and the final date for any withdrawals will be August 30, officials said.