Criticising the West for supporting "tottering, slipping" Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf [Images], the lawyer who successfully defended Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaurdhry has warned that a turmoil will break out the moment the General files his nomination for the forthcoming election.

Describing Musharraf as the "most unpopular, indeed hated man in Pakistan," Aitzaz Ahsan said the movement would be on the lines of one that supported the chief justice, and asked the West to embrace it rather than being "enamoured" with the president.

Ahsan, a stalwart in Benazir Bhutto's [Images] Pakistan People's Party, claimed that the deportation of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif will make the negotiations between Bhutto and the General, who is seeking a second presidential term, difficult.

"One of her (Bhutto's) conditions has always been that there must be a free and fair election with the return of all the exiles, including Nawaz Sharif. Is Musharraf prepared to let Sharif come back? If not, then one of her major conditions is not being met. So what happens to the negotiations?" he said.

The deportation of Sharif, he said, showed that Musharraf has run out of political options.

"He committed a crime under Pakistani law by abducting a man and moving him from point A to B against his will. Musharraf's act was not simply a matter of contempt of the Supreme Court's ruling. This is a criminal act punishable by a ten year jail term," he added.                            

Ahsan, a former interior minister under Benazir Bhutto, had engineered the popular campaign in support of Chaudhry. The campaign eventually developed into an anti-Musharraf movement.

"Sharif's party will press criminal charges against Musharraf at a local police station any day now," he said. Ahsan added that the matter was no longer in the hands of the Supreme Court.

"The matter has now gone into the public domain. People will react. And what will the government do if Nawaz Sharif's wife gets onto a plane and heads for Pakistan? And if his son and daughter come the following week? Will the government keep doing the same thing?" he asked.

"This (deportation) could not have been done without Musharraf's complicity, just as the chief justice could not have been arrested (last March) without Musharraf having ordered it. This case will chase him even in his days of exile outside Pakistan, and the Americans better know it," he said, adding that Musharraf would not be in power for much longer.

"He is not as effective and all-powerful as he used to be. Remember, Pakistan is not Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Jordan, Syria, Morocco, Libya or Egypt. It is a South Asian

Muslim country where due process of law and an electoral mandate are crucial to the legitimacy of government," Asraf added.

The lawyer added that Musharraf's re-election by the current National Assembly and four state assemblies will not impart any legitimacy on him.