LAHORE, Oct 1: Vehemently opposing the government’s reported plan to make the protection of the Legal Framework Order part of the oath for incoming parliament, ARD President Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan said on Tuesday that he would call an emergency meeting of the coalition partners to decide their future course of action.

“The contours of the future parliament’s sovereignty have been exposed by such plans of the regime”, the veteran leader told Dawn by phone.

He said all those to be elected to parliament must oppose all extra-constitutional steps taken by the present regime. The election of Gen Musharraf through a referendum was as unconstitutional as the formation of the National Security Council”, the ARD chief said.

The Nawabzada said it would be a gross violation of the Constitution if the government made protection of the LFO part of the lawmakers’ oath.

He said such steps of the regime made it still more important that the ARD should stay on to play its role after the elections.

He said the Constitution should be restored in the very form in which it was held in abeyance and the amendments made to it during the past three years must be scrapped.

PML-N chairman Raja Zafarul Haq said such a move would mean laying the foundation of a confrontation between the military rulers and the parliamentarians from the very first day.

He said his party would try that all political forces adopted a joint course of action against it. “We’ll try to have a collective line of action”.

Raja Zafarul Haq said it was regrettable that on the one hand Gen Musharraf was saying that the new prime minister would take oath under the 1973 Constitution, not the PCO, and on the other he was making protection of the LFO part of the new parliamentarians’ oath.

PML-QA central leader Chaudhry Shujaat Husain said his party was committed to continuing the reforms introduced by the present regime.

“We don’t believe in opposition for the sake of opposition. We’ll endorse all good steps taken by the Musharraf government”.

In his opinion it was premature to say whether the protection of the LFO would be made part of the oath.

ANP Senior Vice-President Ehsan Wyne said it would be unconstitutional on the part of the regime to have various amendments approved through such coercive methods. “This is an undemocratic proposal, dangerous for the future of the country”.

The ANP would strongly oppose such a move and would also establish a contact with the other parties to dissuade them from supporting it.

Jamaat-i-Islami secretary-general Syed Munawwar Hasan said he was not ready to believe that the government’s faculties had stopped functioning altogether and it had gone insane to an extent that it would take such a ridiculous step.

He said his party would give its formal reaction after a formal decision by the regime.

Muttahida Qaumi Movement leader Sheikh Aftab said that his party would adopt any course of action when the government took a formal decision on the subject.

He said the party’s coordination committee would meet the day the government decided to make the LFO protection part of the legislators’ oath. At this juncture, he said, the Muttahida would prefer to wait for the government’s decision.

Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaaf spokesman Akbar S. Babar ridiculed the proposal, saying his party had already rejected the Legal Framework Order. —AM