A lawyer runs away from tear gas fired by police officers outside the residence of the country's deposed chief justice, Iftikhar Mahmood Chaudhry, during a protest in Islamabad, Pakistan, yesterday.

BHURBAN (AP):

Pakistan's election winners set a collision course with President Pervez Musharraf yesterday, agreeing to form a coalition government and promising that parliament would restore senior judges fired last year by the United States-backed leader in a bid to secure his continued rule.

In the capital, Islamabad, police fired tear gas at protesters at the residence of the Supreme Court chief suspended by Musharraf one year earlier, a move that triggered the political turbulence still dogging Pakistan's return to democracy.

Asif Ali Zardari, the widower of slain opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, and Nawaz Sharif, whose government was ousted in Musharraf's 1999 military coup, announced their pact after talks at a resort town in the foothills of the Himalayas.

In bhutto's memory

"We are bound together in the spirit of democracy," Zardari said at a news conference.

He dedicated the agreement to Bhutto, who was slain in a suicide attack in December, and sought to reassure Western backers who had supported Musharraf for his help in pursuing al-Qaida and Taliban militants.

US officials worry that al-Qaida is regrouping in Pakistan, and Zardari said it was clear that Musharraf's eight-year rule "has not worked".

"We will not disappoint you," Zardari said, though he didn't elaborate on his counterterrorism strategy.

Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party won 120 seats in the new 342-seat National Assembly, followed by Sharif's party with 90. The former ruling party aligned with Musharraf got just 51.