| Chicago Tribune ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- The Pakistani ruling coalition showed signs of fracture Tuesday, only a day after embattled President Pervez Musharraf resigned to avoid impeachment, raising questions about how the coalition will tackle the major crises facing the South Asian nation. SAVE MONEY ON TRAVEL DEALS The major sticking point for the fragile coalition is the same as it has been for months -- whether 41 senior judges fired by Musharraf when he declared emergency rule Nov. 3 should be reinstated and how they should be reinstated. After meeting for more than three hours about the judges Tuesday, former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his supporters abruptly left the house of coalition partner Asif Ali Zardari. The coalition earlier had agreed to reinstate the judges within 24 hours of Musharraf resigning or being impeached. But as of Tuesday night in Pakistan, a decision was not likely until Friday or later. The coalition did not start debating who would be the country's next president or whether Musharraf would face criminal charges, sources said. Sharif and his Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz party, or PML-N, which won the second-largest number of votes in February largely because of campaigning to restore the judiciary, quit the Cabinet in May over the failure to reinstate the judges. The Pakistan People's Party, or PPP, now run by Zardari, the husband of slain Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, won the most seats in the election but has said it is more interested in judicial independence than simply reinstating these particular judges. Two smaller parties also participated in the talks Tuesday and demanded 72 hours to consider the judges' reinstatement. "Let us work on it", an indignant Asfandyar Wali Khan, president of the Awami National Party, said to reporters after the meeting fell apart. He added that his party was not consulted before about the judges. Information Minister Sherry Rehman, a senior PPP member, said the party did not want the extra 72 hours but granted the time to its junior partners. "They have played a very critical role in this impeachment process", Rehman said. Earlier in the day, a senior PML-N member, speaking on condition of anonymity, said he was concerned that Zardari would not honor a deal to reinstate the judges. "Yes, we are worried", the party official said. "We hope he does not back out of his promises." Regardless of how the dispute is resolved, it does not bode well for the future of the coalition, which also must work out who the next president will be and whether Musharraf will face criminal charges for his nine years in office. Musharraf, who was army chief when he seized power from Sharif in 1999, was believed to be in his residence near Islamabad on Tuesday. Some supporters said he planned to leave Pakistan, and others said he would stay. The fledgling ruling coalition has always been a strange political mix, similar to the U.S. Democratic and Republican Parties opting to work together. But the coalition was united by a common enemy: Musharraf. Now that he's out of office, it remains to be seen whether the coalition can tackle the country's crises -- escalating militancy on its border with Afghanistan, rising food prices and an electricity shortage. If Sharif's party opts to sit in the opposition, then Zardari could face a hung Parliament and difficulty passing any legislation. If the country has no clear leadership, it could hurt the fight against militants and the U.S.-led war on terror, of which Pakistan is a key ally. As if to underscore the country's problems, the Tehrik-e-Taliban militant group claimed responsibility for a suicide blast Tuesday that killed 27 people near a hospital crowded with Shiite Muslims in the northwestern town of Dera Ismail Khan.
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