The widower of slain former Pakistani premier Benazir Bhutto has decided to run for president in the wake of Pervez Musharraf's resignation, officials announced Saturday.
   
Asif Ali Zardari Friday won the backing of lawmakers from the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) to contest the September 6 poll to choose a successor to Musharraf, who stepped down on Monday amid the threat of impeachment.
   
But the fragile ruling coalition comprising the PPP, now led by Zardari, and the party of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, remains at odds over several issues, including the reinstatement of judges sacked by Musharraf last year.
   
Political instability and a nosediving economy have alarmed Western nations looking for continuity after the departure of Musharraf, a key US ally, but talks between the PPP and Sharif's party have so far failed to make headway.
   
"Mr Asif Zardari has accepted to contest the election for the office of president of Pakistan after the party unanimously drafted him to do so," PPP deputy secretary general Raza Rabbani told a press conference.
   
Rabbani said Zardari had been chosen in part in tribute to the sacrifices of Bhutto, who was killed in a suicide attack at an election rally in December.
   
The party official said the PPP had consulted its coalition partners before announcing that Zardari was their choice to lead the nuclear-armed nation, adding: "We are optimistic that the coalition will remain intact."
   
Sharif has said he would back Zardari for president if he were to do away with the presidential power -- created by Musharraf -- to dissolve parliament.
   
But the fate of the 60 judges, including the independent-minded former chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, has become a political sticking point with crucial repercussions for the coalition.
   
Sharif has asked the PPP to tell him if the judges can get their jobs back on Monday, having previously threatened to quit the coalition if they were not reinstated by Friday.
   
The former premier -- who was ousted by Musharraf in a 1999 coup -- had said representatives of the two parties would draft a resolution on restoring the judges over the weekend and then introduce it in parliament on Monday.
   
A resolution on the reinstatement of the judges would require the PPP's support.
   
Rabbani said the "judges will be restored" but said a timeframe could not be given immediately.
   
Critics have suggested that Zardari is against the return of Chaudhry because he could overturn an amnesty on corruption charges that allowed Bhutto and Zardari to return to Pakistan.
   
Sharif's party spokesman Siddiqul Farooq said the issue of whether Zardari would stand for the presidency was the PPP's "own decision," not that of the coalition partners.
   
"It is the PPP's own decision and it has nothing to do with the coalition," Farooq said.
   
"We do not want a civilian president with the same powers that Musharraf had, mainly the power to dissolve parliament," he added.
   
"Our top priority is restoration of the judges and we want it done on Monday," Farooq insisted, adding that the party would meet in Islamabad on Monday to discuss the latest developments.
   
Musharraf's resignation and the race to replace him come amid a prolonged battle with Islamic militants who have carried out a series of suicide bombings and clashed with troops on the Afghan border.
   
In restive northwest Pakistan, the military said security forces had killed up to 35 militants in an offensive in the troubled Swat valley after a suicide attack on a police station killed seven people, including three policemen.
   
A double Taliban suicide bombing at Pakistan's biggest weapons factory on Thursday, the deadliest ever attack on a Pakistani military site, has put fresh pressure on the coalition to end its bickering and focus on militant violence.
   
The parties in the current ruling coalition defeated Musharraf's allies in polls held in February.