Pakistani Opposition Clashes With the Police

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Pakistan remained in a political deadlock over the weekend as negotiations stalled between the beleaguered government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his opponents, who have been demanding his resignation.

Mr. Sharif said Saturday that he would not resign and called the demands to do so by his opponents 'unacceptable' and 'unconstitutional.' Negotiators from Mr. Sharif's government and two leading opposition parties who have organized separate protests in Islamabad, the capital, since Aug. 15, were meeting late Saturday, with both sides appearing unwilling to soften their positions.

Speaking to reporters in Lahore, the eastern city where he has his power base and spends his weekends, Mr. Sharif predicted that the protests would end in a few days. Mr. Sharif is expected to address the nation in the coming days, aides said.

Thousands of protesters have been camping out in Islamabad since two leading opposition politicians, Imran Khan and Muhammad Tahir-ul Qadri, an influential cleric, led two separate marches on the capital from Lahore. They have been demanding Mr. Sharif's resignation and the dissolution of the national and provincial assemblies. Mr. Khan is demanding new elections; Mr. Qadri wants an interim unity government to run the country as well as ambitious economic and political overhauls.

The government has agreed to consider changes to the country's contentious electoral system and initiate an independent investigation into allegations of rigging in last year's general elections, one of Mr. Khan's criticisms of Mr. Sharif.

But ruling party members say their opponents need to drop their demands for Mr. Sharif's resignation.

'Imran Khan and Tahir-ul Qadri need to give up on the idea of resignations,' Marvi Memon, a member of the National Assembly from the Pakistan Muslim League party, said in an interview. 'It is not happening.'

Mr. Khan, a charismatic former cricket player who enjoys passionate support among his followers, has claimed that Mr. Sharif rigged general elections in May 2013 with the help of the judiciary and the interim government that oversaw the voting. He insists that Mr. Sharif must step aside, even for just a month, until an investigation is completed. He reiterated this demand Saturday afternoon as he spoke to supporters at the protest site.

Ms. Memon said Mr. Khan and Mr. Qadri were 'wasting everyone's time with their unconstitutional demands.'

But the two-week-long protest has crippled any sense of normalcy in the capital. Army troops have been stationed at important government buildings amid fears that protesters will try to storm them.

On Saturday, small antigovernment protests broke out in several other cities around Pakistan. No violence was reported.

Mr. Khan's supporters - who are mostly young men and women from the middle and upper-middle classes - have been gathering for protests every evening outside Parliament. Mr. Qadri's supporters, perhaps, present a more formidable challenge to the government. Thousands of his die-hard supporters, who tend to be less affluent and from small towns, including men, women and even children, have braved scorching heat and heavy rains in a permanent encampment outside the Parliament building. Armed with batons and sticks against feared attacks from security forces, some of his supporters have wrapped themselves in coffin shrouds and say they want 'martyrdom or revolution.'

Last week, Mr. Sharif sought the help of the country's powerful military to defuse the crisis. But in meetings with the chief of the army, Gen. Raheel Sharif, who is not related to the prime minister, both Mr. Khan and Qadri stuck to their demands for Mr. Sharif's resignation. The military says it has been asked to play the role of a 'facilitator' by the government.

It remains unclear how willing the military is to salvage Mr. Sharif's sinking public image. Mr. Sharif has a turbulent history with the powerful military and has clashed with three army chiefs in his three stints in power. Ms. Memon called reports in the international news media that the military was pressuring Mr. Sharif on issues such as foreign policy and internal security 'baseless.'