July 16, 2002	Tuesday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 5, 1423

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ISLAMABAD, July 15: President Musharraf on Monday clarified that the graduation condition would not apply to party office-holders and that the government will be issuing a clarification to this effect.

He was speaking to a 13-member team of PML (QA) which called on him at the chief executive’s house, lead by party president Mian Mohammad Azhar.

The president, PML team said, was positive in acceding to certain changes in the constitutional package, leaving three to four vital ones, and promised to consider counter proposals submitted by the delegation saying, “some of them were doable”.

Those who met the president included, Ejazul Haq, Iftikhar Gilani, Zafarullah Jamali, Lt-Gen Majeed Malik, Syed Fakhr Imam, Begum Abida Hussain, Khurshid Mehmud Qasoori, Sikandar Malhi, Col (retd) Ghulam Sarwar Cheema, Zahid Hamid, Mian Abdul Waheed, and Neelofar Bakhtiar.

Lt-Gen Tanvir Hussain Naqvi, chairman National Reconstruction Bureau, and president’s principal staff officer, Tariq Aziz, were part of the president’s team.

Fakhr Imam, convener of party’s constitutional body, told newsmen that the party proposed point-to-point proposals to the president who took keen interest in certain explanations.

Ejazul Haq, senior vice-president of the party, told Dawn that the team pleaded the case against the condition of graduation for the office-holders.

The party also proposed not to change the term of assemblies to four years, and that the appointment of governors should be made on the advice of the prime minister.

On the question of NSC, the party proposed inclusion of four federal ministers — foreign affairs, defence, finance and interior, apart from the already including leader of the opposition, and that its mandate should be consultative/advisory and not an executive one.