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Musharraf away as parliament holds ceremony

Pakistan inaugurated a new parliament yesterday dominated by opponents of President Pervez Musharraf who have vowed to crimp his powers and review his US-backed policies against Islamic militants.

At stake is the future course and political stability of the nuclear-armed country and its 160 million people, struggling with economic problems as well as militants linked to the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

In a brief ceremony in the National Assembly, more than 300 of the newly elected lawmakers stood and repeated the oath of office at the prompting of the lower house's outgoing speaker.

Musharraf stayed away from the session, which marked the end of his eight-year domination of Pakistani politics.

But the widower of slain opposition leader Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, the former prime minister whose government Musharraf ousted in a 1999 coup, watched benevolently from the gallery.

Their presence shows that "the people of Pakistan have rejected" Musharraf's 1999 coup, said Ahsan Iqbal, a lawmaker for Sharif's party who jumped to his feet shortly after the oaths were taken.

Bhutto's party, now led by her husband Asif Ali Zardari, won the most seats in the Feb. 18 elections, which delivered a resounding defeat to supporters of Musharraf.

Zardari's Pakistan People's Party has said it could form a coalition with Sharif and a smaller group from the militancy-plagued northwest.

"This is the last day of dictatorship," Zardari told reporters after meeting Sharif in the parliament building.

"This is our first step. We have conveyed a message to the world community to support democracy, which defeats dictatorship," he said.

The People's Party has said its top priority will be to seek a UN investigation of the Dec. 27 gun-and-suicide-bomb attack that killed Bhutto, the highest-profile victim of a wave of violence sweeping Pakistan.

To reassert the primacy of parliament, the coalition aims to amend the constitution to strip Musharraf of his power to dissolve the assemblies and dismiss the prime minister.

It has also said it will restore judges purged from the courts by Musharraf when he declared emergency rule last November.
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