October 18, 2002	Friday	Sha'aban 11, 1423

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LAHORE, Oct 17: PML(Q) President Mian Muhammad Azhar on Thursday added his voice to PPP leader Makhdoom Amin Faheem’s proposal for the formation of a government of national consensus, an idea which is one of three options the Muttahida Majlis-i-Aml is also considering to support.

“The country needs stability after confrontation and instability seen during the past 25 years. To solve people’s problems the country needs a government of national consensus,” the PML(Q) chief said in the presence of the PPP leader.

A candidate for the prime minister, Makhdoom had come to the Punjab capital to address his party’s legislators-elect from the country’s biggest province and apprise them of the progress in efforts he was making for government formation.

After an impromptu news conference, Makhddom was coming out of the room when he got a glimpse of the PML(Q) president in the coffee shop of the same hotel.

Leaders of the two rival parties warmly embraced each other.

Mian Azhar, defeated from two NA seats of Lahore, told a questioner that his party was keeping all options open, including formation of a government in cooperation with the PPP. However, he had no soft words for the exiled leaders Benazir Bhutto and Mian Nawaz Sharif, saying the confrontational politics of the two was responsible for the problems facing the country at present.

The central working committee of the PML(Q) is due to meet in Islamabad on Saturday to review the post-election situation and the policy it should pursue to be able to form its governments at the Centre and in provinces.

The Makhdoom said the government of national consensus meant that all major parties represented in parliament should join hands to run the country. Such a setup, he believed, was the best course in the prevailing circumstances.

Parties left out of the arrangement could play the role of opposition, he explained.

Asked whether restoration of genuine democracy would be possible in the presence of numerous controversial amendments made to the Constitution while it was still in abeyance, the Makhdoom said transition to democracy was a very delicate phase and all parties should proceed very carefully. Rejecting the suggestion that the party was willing to sacrifice its principles as a price for power, the PPP leader warned that confrontation with the present rulers could be dangerous.

“Should it be assumed that the PPP now recognizes Gen Musharraf as the legitimate president?” a reporter asked.

The Makhdoom said democratic forces represented in parliament would take an appropriate decision on the subject. However, he said, his party had always been stressing that the president should be elected according to the Constitution.

He left it to parliament to decide whether there was a need for the National Security Council.

Referring to the numerical strength of his party in the National Assembly, the PPP leader said at present it was the PML(Q) versus the rest.

MMA Information Secretary Pir Ijaz Hashmi said the religious parties’ alliance supported the idea of a national government. But in case the PPP and the PML(Q) were willing to join hands, the remaining parties would have to sit on opposition benches.

Similarly, he said, if parties in the ARD and the MMA cooperated with each other and took smaller parties and independents along, the PML(Q) might have to sit in opposition.

Hashmi said the split mandate made it imperative for political parties of divergent views to cooperate with one another for the smooth working of the system.

Otherwise, he predicted, the country would not be able to come out of the quagmire it had been stuck in for the past three years.

In his opinion, the PML(Q) would form its government in the Punjab, the MMA in the NWFP, the PPP in Sindh and a coalition would have to be worked out for Balochistan.

To enable the provincial governments to work properly a more homogeneous setup was needed for Islamabad, the MMA official said.