ISLAMABAD, June 14: Both taunts and acclaim marked the start of the budget debate in the National Assembly on Saturday, but the house seemed much relieved after lawyers closed their “long march” programme near the parliament house at dawn without a long sit-in.

Since the lawyers seeking reinstatement of deposed judges had kept plans about the final stage of their highly organised protest to their chests, many people had expected them to stage a sit-in for at least another day after their arrival in the capital on Friday night in what could have been a standoff with parliament when both houses were to meet on Saturday morning to begin their general debates on the national budget for fiscal 2008-09.

But as the National Assembly and the Senate met, the protest camp had already been folded up after march leader Aitzaz Ahsan announced the conclusion of the programme.

The government feigned unconcerned after the peaceful end of the lawyers’ protest though the event seemed to be on the mind of every parliament member, some of whom used their budget speeches to call for an early reinstatement of the judges of the Supreme Court and the four high courts who were sacked under President Pervez Musharraf’s controversial Nov 3, 2007, emergency proclamation.

Opposition leader in the National Assembly Chaudhry Pervez Elahi taunted the ruling coalition for a rift between the two main partners — the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and the Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) — over the judges’ issue as he lambasted the budget in his opening speech for what he called a lack of “any vision or a political philosophy” that could reflect the thinking of the new government’s five-year term.

But the former Punjab chief minister reserved his severest criticism for PML-N, which leads the new coalition government in the province after a humiliating defeat of his Pakistan Muslim League (PML) in the Feb 18 election, particularly for what he saw as an irresponsible attitude of Senator Ishaq Dar as the finance minister in Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani’s cabinet that he quit with eight other PML-N ministers because of the differences on how to restore the judges.

“This coalition has many mouths,” he said, adding that the people and the administration are in a dilemma over which voice to trust and which to disregard as untrue.

But Mr Elahi had stirred up a hornets’ nest with strong rebuttals coming from the treasury benches including those by former opposition leader Maulana Fazlur Rehman, whose Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam is a smaller partner in the government, PML-N’s Ahsan Iqbal and the prime minister’s economic affairs special assistance Hina Rabbani Khar, who was a minister of state in the previous government.

The JUI leader said the new budget had been prepared within the limits of resources and crises inherited from the alleged eight-year misrule of President Musharraf but hoped the direction set by the new government could overcome these problems in one or two years.

Mr Ahsan Iqbal, who resigned as education minister last month, described the budget as “the best effort in worst conditions” and called for the establishment of a special commission to determine who was responsible for Pakistan’s present problems such as the energy deficiency, food shortages and a huge trade deficit. He also called for an early reinstatement of the deposed judges and ouster and accountability of President Musharraf.

Ms Khar blamed what she called a “complete policy inaction” of the previous government for the current price hike and accused the opposition leader of mismanaging the affairs of Punjab as chief minister. But she came under a sharp flak from a former party colleague of the PML, Ms Donya Aziz, who quoted from some of Ms Khar’s speeches in praise of the previous government as its minister.

Abdul Kadir Khanzada of the Muttahida Quami Movement praised the budget for some of its proposals such as freezing the defence budget and increasing salaries and pensions of government employees, but criticised the reduction in subsidies on wheat, electricity and gas, and called for the release of what he called blocked funds for development plans in Karachi.

PML-N’s Ayaz Amir called for a rethinking about Pakistan’s “blind pursuit” of US policies, supporting the NWFP’s peace moves in the troubled Swat district and a bold approach to “break through the cobweb” to restore the deposed judges.

The debate will continue on Sunday, when the house will meet at 10.30am.