LAHORE, Oct 26: The Jamaat-i-Islami is against any deadlock in the government formation and is ready even to cooperate with the PML-Q, if need be, in this regard.

The central executive committee of the Jamaat which met here on Saturday was of the opinion that if the MMA was unable to form government in the centre it should sit on opposition benches allowing the PPP and the PML-Q to rule the country.

And if the two parties also failed to join hands then the PML-Q should be quietly lent support to form government, a Jamaat official told Dawn shortly after the meeting.

And the question of setting terms for extending cooperating to the League would be settled by the MMA, he said.

However, efforts were being made to convince the PML-Q to restrain itself to ruling the biggest province of the country and leaving the centre to the MMA, he added.

The committee had authorized party chief Qazi Husain Ahmad to take a decision according to the situation in consultation with other colleagues in the MMA, he said.

“Discussing various options for government formation, the meeting reached the conclusion that transfer of power should be the foremost priority and the army government’s sharing of power tactics should be handled carefully.”

The Jamaat official did not believe that the PPP was serious in extending support to MMA nominee for prime minister’s slot Maulana Fazlur Rahman. “Had there been any such possibility, Ms Benazir Bhutto would not have been writing to US President Bush against the win of the religious forces in the country.”

He claimed that the Jamaat was never in favour of forming government in the centre. It was Maulana Fazl who argued that as the religious forces had been given a mandate for change they should try to form their government for the purpose, he said.

“Maulana Mufti Mahmood had formed his government in the NWFP though he had only five MPAs in the then provincial assembly,” he quoted Maulana Fazl as saying to the Qazi as the latter was reluctant to contact the PPP and other parties for gaining their support for forming government.