Zardari plans to scupper lawyers' march

Islamabad: Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari is sure he can deal with those lawyers who plan to march on the capital on March 9 to pressurise him for the restoration of the deposed judges.

"I know how to tackle the lawyers who plan to stage a march and sit in," Zardari was quoted as telling a meeting of ruling Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) legislators at the Presidency late on Monday night. Officials said a confident looking Zardari, who is also co-chairman of the ruling PPP, told worried party legislators to buck up and not worry about the situation that could develop as a result of the march.

The PML-N, the second largest party in the parliament and the party which runs the Punjab government, has already announced their full support and participation for the lawyers' sit-in.

Lawyer leaders have made it clear that they won't be vacating Constitution Avenue until their demand for the restoration of deposed chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry and the rest of their fellow judges is met.

The Presidency, the Prime Minister's Secretariat, the Parliament House, the Foreign Ministry, and other important departments and offices are located on Constitution Avenue in Islamabad, and officials say if the lawyers are able to block this major road then the functioning of the government is compromised.

For more than a year, exit and entry points to Constitution Avenue have been heavily guarded by Police. This followed a spree of terrorist attacks in 2007 and 2008 which hit the capital and Rawalpindi particularly hard, only authorised persons are now allowed into this area. Zardari assured parliamentarians that the government would complete its five year term and no conspiracy against it would succeed. "PPP always comes in power when the country is faced with grave security and financial crisis, but we will live up to the challenge," he resolved.

The nine month old PPP government is under severe pressure from the public to deliver solutions on both economic and political fronts in the wake of harsh economic indicators, inflation and rampant corruption.

For many in Pakistan, the representative parliament is not meeting expectations following political brawling between President Zardari and former prime minister Nawaz Sharif over two main issues; the restoration of deposed judges and the creation of a constitutional package to clip presidential powers, in particular the power to sack the government and dissolve the lower house of parliament.

The Zardari led PPP suspects Sharifs wants to overthrow the PPP government and a mid term election, a charge PML-N denies.

Analysts believe Sharif brothers' eligibility case in the supreme court, the future of Punjab government, and lawyers' March 9 long march will decide fate of the democratic dispensation.