Pakistan Sets Date for President Vote

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Days after the resignation of President Pervez Musharraf, the Pakistani election commission announced Friday that lawmakers will vote for his replacement in just over two weeks, bringing in a new leader to confront the threat from militants.

The announcement of elections Sept. 6 came a day after twin suicide attacks outside the country’s biggest weapons factory complex. The death toll in those attacks rose to 78 on Friday, said Rao Muhammad Iqbal, the city police chief of Rawalpindi. Mr. Rao said 103 people were wounded in the twin suicide bombings, the deadliest strike by the Taliban in the past 18 months.
A Taliban spokesman, Maulvi Umar, claimed responsibility for the attack Thursday outside Pakistan Ordnance Factories, a complex of more than 16 factories in Wah, which is in Rawalpindi District. He said the attacks had been a response to a Pakistani military operation against militants in Bajaur, according to local news outlets. Mr. Umar also threatened more suicide attacks.
The attack came at a time of political uncertainty in Pakistan, with disputes within the governing coalition.
Leaders of the coalition held meetings in Islamabad, the capital, on Friday over a plan to reinstate judges deposed by Mr. Musharraf when he imposed a state of emergency last November, a move that contributed to his downfall. One leading member of the governing coalition, former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, the leader of Pakistan Muslim League-N, has threatened to pull out of the ruling coalition if the judges are not reinstated.
Members of the Pakistan Peoples Party, the other leading party in the coalition government, want Asif Ali Zardari, the widower of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and a leader of the party, to be the next president.
Kanwar Muhammad Dilshad, secretary of the Election Commission, said at a news conference in Islamabad on Friday that nomination papers will be filed on Tuesday while the scrutiny of the papers will be held on Thursday. Polling will be held simultaneously in the Parliament and the four provincial assemblies on Sept. 6, and the result will be announced the same day, a Saturday.
The ruling coalition has dithered on the issue of restoration of the judges despite showing unity in engineering the ouster of Mr. Musharraf.
The reinstatement of the Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry and other judges of the Supreme Court fired by Mr. Musharraf were one of the main election promises of Mr. Sharif. On Friday, at a press briefing in Islamabad, Mr. Sharif said a drafting committee would finalize a resolution for the reinstatement of the judges over the weekend.
“The resolution should be tabled in the Parliament on Monday,” he said. “After debate, it should be passed on Wednesday and judges should be restored.”
Mr. Sharif said he would not accept the reinstatement of judges if it did not include Chief Justice Chaudhry. “Without him, the restoration of the judiciary will be a joke,” he said.
Despite Mr. Sharif’s deadline of Wednesday, other members of the ruling coalition, especially the Pakistan Peoples Party, appeared to be in no rush.
Mr. Zardari fears that Mr. Chaudhry might undo an amnesty agreement that absolved him of corruption charges. The amnesty, which applies to bureaucrats and politicians who faced such charges, was part of a package arranged by Mr. Musharraf when Mr. Zardari returned to Pakistan after his wife, Ms. Bhutto was assassinated in December.
Some members of the Pakistan Peoples Party said Mr. Sharif’s threats on the judiciary were draining the energy of the governing coalition, as its leaders struggled to keep the fledgling coalition together and that this diverted the government’s focus from pressing issues.
“The biggest problem we face is militancy in the North-West Frontier Province,” said Sheikh Mansoor Ahmed, a senior Pakistan Peoples Party official. “There is great resentment in the southwestern Baluchistan province against the federation. The economy is a shambles.”

“There are far more important issues than the restoration of judiciary,”