He still appears to have the backing of fellow generals and the US, but the growing protests and a blizzard of legal challenges to his suspension of the top judge have thrown plans for another presidential term into turmoil.

"This is a middle-class revolt for the rule of law," said Ayesha Siddiqa Agha, a political analyst. "Musharraf's options are narrowing by the day."

Loyalists insist that Musharraf's March 9 decision to suspend Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry was nonpolitical. But many observers suspect a ploy to remove an independent-minded judge who could obstruct the general's plans to stay in power. Chaudhry, who became chief justice in 2005, has a reputation for challenging government actions and human rights abuses.

On Sunday, an estimated 20,000 people, most of them lawyers and opposition party supporters, gathered in downtown Lahore, Pakistan's main eastern city, after Chaudhry traveled 170 miles in a grand convoy from Islamabad.

After weeks of carefully avoiding comments that could be construed as political, Chaudhry declared in a speech broadcast live by private TV networks that dictatorship had had its day.

"The dictatorial system of government and the concept of concentration of power is now ended," Chaudhry said. "All these are bitter lessons of history."