Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf Tuesday summoned parliament to meet on March 17, setting up a showdown with the opposition parties, which routed his allies in elections last month. Key US ally Musharraf is likely to face a hostile parliament after Asif Ali Zardari, widower of slain ex-premier Benazir Bhutto, and former prime minister Nawaz Sharif agreed on Sunday to form a coalition government. The announcement came as the nuclear-armed nation was thrown further into crisis by a double suicide bombing in the eastern city of Lahore that killed at least 25 people. “President Musharraf has signed the summary (summoning parliament) which Prime Minister Mohammedmian Soomro sent to him yesterday. The national assembly will now meet on March 17,” presidential spokesman Rashid Qureshi said. Both Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party (PPP) - which won the most seats in the Feb. 18 ballot - and Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) had accused Musharraf of delaying the first parliamentary sitting. The pro-Musharraf Pakistan Muslim League-Q, which was in government between 2002 and Nov. 2007, lost heavily in the elections. The biggest threat to Musharraf is likely to come from Zardari and Sharif's pledge on Sunday to pass legislation within the first 30 days of the new parliament that will reinstate judges sacked by the president last year. The dismissed judges - including chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhary, Musharraf's arch-foe - could take up legal challenges to Musharraf's re-election as president last October if they are restored. Musharraf imposed a state of emergency and sacked some 60 judges on November 3, days before the Supreme Court was due to rule on the legality of his new presidential term, which he secured while he was still army chief. __
