WASHINGTON, Nov 22: Lawyers plan to do another long march to Islamabad in February or March this year in support of their demand for an independent judiciary, Aitzaz Ahsan said on Saturday.

Mr Ahsan, who leads the lawyers’ movement in Pakistan, also urged the incoming US administration to help Pakistanis restore an independent judiciary to their country.

“We will do another long march to Islamabad in February or March,” said Mr Ahsan, who led tens of thousands of protesters to the capital in June this year.

The supporters, however, felt let down by the lawyers’ movement when the long march that followed a week of country-wide protests ended abruptly and without achieving its objective.

Addressing Pakistani journalists in Washington on Saturday, Mr Ahsan dismissed the suggestion that he called off the protest to please Asif Ali Zardari and other leaders of his Pakistan People’s Party. “We never planned to do a long sit-in because we knew it would not have succeeded,” said Mr Ahsan.

Mr Ahsan, who was in Washington to receive an award from the prestigious Middle East Institute, noted that the outgoing US administration had refused to support the cause of an independent judiciary in Pakistan.

“But we hope that the Obama administration will understand the need for an independent judiciary in Pakistan,” he said.