October 15, 2002	Tuesday	Sha'aban 8, 1423

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ISLAMABAD, Oct 14: If the parliamentarians opt to take oath under the Provisional Constitutional Order (PCO), instead of the original 1973 Constitution, it will mean that they have accepted the amendments introduced by the military government in the form of Legal Framework Order (LFO).

This was stated by the central information secretary of Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaf (PTI), Akbar S. Babar, while talking to reporters here on Monday. He said it would also be the first test of the political parties before forming the government, because if the elected members took oath under the PCO, it would be tentamount to deviation from the stated positions of their respective parties.

Except for the PML-Q, almost every political party had rejected the LFO on the grounds that the constitution could be amended only through a two-third majority of the parliament, he said.

However, he was of the view that almost all the political parties would reject to take oath under the PCO.

Mr Babar said his party chief Imran Khan, who had won his national assembly seat from Mianwali, would arrive in the capital on Tuesday to devise party’s future line of action. Most likely, he will sit in the opposition.

He said the real king makers after the announcement of the election results would be the members who had won their seats under the umbrella of “Crescent”. He claimed that a large number of candidates, even former ministers, had won the elections with crescent as their election symbol and now they were in a position to assert themselves.