Former Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif agreed on Sunday to join the late Benazir Bhutto's party in a coalition, raising the prospect of a government hostile to U.S. ally President Pervez Musharraf.
In an ominous sign for Musharraf, Sharif and Asif Ali Zardari, Bhutto's widower and the new leader of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP), agreed to restore judges who Musharraf dismissed when he imposed emergency rule in early November.
Bhutto's PPP won the most seats in a February 18 general election but not enough to rule alone. Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), or PML (N), party came second and while it had promised to support the PPP, Sharif had not previously confirmed his party would join the PPP in government.
"The coalition partners ... undertake to form a coalition together for a democratic Pakistan," Sharif and Zardari, who took over as PPP leader after Bhutto was assassinated on December 27, said in their agreement.
Sharif read out the agreement at a news conference with Zardari in the hill town of Bhurban, near Islamabad.
The dismissed judges, including the Supreme Court chief justice, were seen as hostile to Musharraf's October re-election by legislators for a new five-year term as president while he was still army chief. The judges are likely to take up legal challenges to Musharraf if they are restored.
The agreement between the PPP and PML (N) would appear to dash any hope that Musharraf might have had that the party that backs him, which came a poor third in the election, might be part of a coalition.
The Awami Nationalist Party, an ethnic Pashtun nationalist party which has emerged as a major group in the North West Frontier Province by trouncing hardline Islamic groups, will also be part of the PPP-led coalition.
The Jamaiat-e-ulema-e-Islam, a major Islamic party, has also said it had agreed "in principle" to join the coalition.
Zardari and Sharif agreed the reappointment of the dismissed judges would occur through a parliamentary resolution within 30 days of the formation of the government.
Musharraf quit as army chief in November, before being sworn in as civilian president.
