Washington also maintained it has no role in the formation of a new government in Pakistan amid reports that the Bush administration was guiding the formation of the next setup.

“It will be up to the people of Pakistan to see what their new government will look like. But the president (George Bush) does certainly support him (Musharraf) and has continued to,” White House Press Secretary Dana Perino said yesterday.

"The President does support President Musharraf for all of the work that he's done to help us in counterterrorism.
And if you look at what we asked President Musharraf to do, which is to take off the uniform, to set free and fair elections, and to lift the emergency order, he did all of those things."

US Ambassador Anne Patterson has had a couple of meetings with Zardari and PML-N leader Nawaz Sharif in the last few days after the two opposition parties decided to join hands to form a new coalition following the defeat of Musharraf's allies in the recent Parliamentary elections.

Zardari, who is co-chairman of the PPP, was quoted in The Wall Street Journal as suggesting he would seek a working relationship with Musharraf because the victorious coalition does not have a two-thirds majority in Parliament to impeach the president. "Our main objective is to work for the smooth transition to democracy," he said.

As PPP and PML-N wait for formation of their new coalition government, their leaders have meanwhile sought advice from legal experts to address differences over how to reinstate judges deposed during last year's emergency. The advice of the experts was sought as lawyers and constitutional experts appeared to be divided over ways to reinstate the judges as well as the fate of the judicial set-up established by Musharraf during the Emergency.