March 16 (Bloomberg) -- Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani prepared to address a nation wracked by weekend protests against President Asif Ali Zardari that are set to culminate later today with a massive rally in Islamabad.

Police worked before dawn to remove their road blocks from the streets of the capital, television footage showed. Ahsan Iqbal, a spokesman for the opposition Pakistan Muslim League, said the government told the party it will restore former chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, meeting a key demand of the protesters. The prime minister will give good news to the nation, Cabinet member Nabeel Ahmed Gabol said.

The U.S. has urged Zardari and opposition leader Nawaz Sharif to calm the conflict, saying it distracts the country from fighting Islamic militant guerrillas who control areas near the border with Afghanistan. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called Zardari on March 14 as the protests spread. Sharif yesterday defied a house arrest order as police fired tear gas at his supporters to prevent them from traveling to Islamabad. Thousands waited for Sharif outside the Lahore High Court, a rallying point for protesting lawyers, amid the stench of tear gas and burning tires.

“Sharif has completely hijacked the lawyers’ movement,” Zardari’s Pakistan Peoples Party said in a statement in Karachi yesterday. “His supporters have targeted law-enforcement officials with sticks and bricks.”

Zardari’s use of force to quell protest and growing dissent in his party, are “deepening his credibility deficit and leaving his government weaker,” said Syed Khwaja Alqama, a political-science professor in the Punjab province city of Multan, the site of one of the weekend’s biggest demonstrations. A split in Zardari’s party deepened as the government accepted the resignation of Information Minister Sherry Rehman.

Political Clash

The protests sharpened a confrontation that began Feb. 25, when the Supreme Court barred Sharif, a former prime minister and Zardari’s chief rival, from public office. It also barred Sharif’s brother, Shahbaz, deposing him as the elected leader of Punjab, the country’s most populous province.

Any resolution of the political crisis will need the support of the army, which has ruled Pakistan for 32 of its 61 years, Alqama, a professor at Zakriya Bahauddin University, said in a telephone interview. The army chief, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, met Zardari and Gilani separately, a government statement said.

Police yesterday surrounded Sharif’s home in Lahore, attempting to put him under house arrest for three days and detaining scores of other leaders of his Pakistan Muslim League, said party spokesman Pervez Rashid. The government blockaded central Lahore and Islamabad, tightening its crackdown on nationwide protests to demand the restoration of dismissed judges who are supported by Sharif.

Protest Threat

Zardari “will face a long period of protest now,” said Rai Muhammad Salim Raza Kharal, a Muslim League activist who managed to reach the main rally venue in Lahore.

Around Lahore, knots of lawyers and Muslim League activists tried to evade police barricades. Officers escorted them away as they shouted support for Sharif and Chaudhry. Outside Lahore, Islamabad, Multan and other cities, police piled shipping containers to form high steel walls, barricading some of the nation’s most important highways and forcing drivers to creep down side roads to seek alternate routes.

Lawyers Blocked

Zardari denied accusations by the Sharifs that he encouraged the Punjab court ruling barring them from office. His spokesman, Farhatullah Babar, said the government will ask the court to revise its verdict.

Hours before police locked him in his house, Sharif told a crowd of supporters there that he will wage a prolonged protest campaign if necessary to force Zardari to restore the former Chief Justice and 59 other judges of the Supreme Court and other high courts who were dismissed in 2007 by the army-led government of former President Pervez Musharraf. Zardari says he is willing to restore some judges, but not Chaudhry, who won a popular following with his rulings against alleged corruption and human rights abuses under Musharraf.

Bhutto’s Secretary

Amid Zardari’s crackdown, Peoples Party aides of his assassinated ex-wife, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, appeared to be backing away from him, raising expectations that Gilani might step forward to broker a deal, Alqama said. Naheed Khan, Bhutto’s long-time secretary, said she supports the judges and urged their reinstatement.

Less than a year after a civilian government took office following eight years of army-backed rule, it “is now being seen as a perpetrator of repression,” said Ishtiaq Ahmed, associate professor of international relations at Islamabad’s Quaid-i-Azam University. “It is a serious threat to a populist party, which may start unraveling soon because it has allowed concentration of power in one man.”

To contact the reporters on this story: James Rupert in Lahore at jrupert3@bloomberg.net; Khalid Qayum in Islamabad at kqayum@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: March 15, 2009 20:06 EDT