November 6, 2002	Wednesday	Sha’aban 30,1423

Please Visit our Sponsor (Ads open in separate window)

ISLAMABAD, Nov 5: In a move to break the political deadlock, the two main opposition parties on Tuesday announced an odd but credible combine to form the next civilian government that may send shockwaves across the US-led coalition against terrorism.

Political sources said the establishment was worried by the pact between the 15-party Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy — led by the PPP — and the six-party Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal, and was discussing plans to block its implementation.

One option to counter the move could be yet another ordinance to be issued by President Gen Pervez Musharraf to amend the Political Parties Act to allow floor-crossing by the MNAs in order to ensure his loyalist PML-Q’s Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali wins the prime ministerial race.

Another could be a postponement of the National Assembly session called for Friday to allow the PML-Q more time to win over wavering MNAs and groups.

But political sources said such brazen moves just before the 342-seat house is to hold its inaugural meeting, could act both ways and confound the situation already confused by a hung assembly.

STRANGE PARTNERS: The secular-oriented PPP and hardline religious parties are strange partners that have traditionally been poles apart and were further distanced from each other by the MMA’s opposition and PPP’s tacit support for the US-led military campaign in Afghanistan.

But the two sides were forced to come together by the military government’s refusal, so far, to make any concessions either on their joint demands centred on the supremacy of parliament and the PPP’s anxiety for an honourable return home of its self-exiled leader Benazir Bhutto.

“It’s a choice between military dictatorship and mullahs, and we have to accept the latter,” a PPP source said.

The PPP, whose electoral arm People’s Party Parliamentarians emerged as the second largest party in the elections with 81 seats, said on Tuesday the ARD had “agreed, in principle, on the formation of a government with the MMA” and the two alliances were jointly in a position to elect their prime minister.

But there was no word yet whether PPP’s Makhdoom Amin Fahim or MMA’s Maulana Fazlur Rehman would be the joint prime ministerial candidate to face Mr Jamali.

PARTY NOMINEES: “It has also been decided, in principle, which party’s nominee will be the prime minister and which party’s nominee will be the Speaker,” PPP spokesman Farhatullah Babar told Dawn.

“However, a formal announcement of the nominations for the two posts has been withheld till progress on some other items on which negotiations are continuing,” he said.

He would not identify the issues now being discussed but said the PPP had given some proposals that the MMA was now discussing.

Mr Babar put the present ARD-MMA strength in the National Assembly at 174, which, he said, included PPP’s 81, PML-N’s 19, MMA’s 67 (including seven pro-MMA tribal MNAs) and some from smaller ARD parties.

If true, that should be enough for the election of the prime minister.

On the other hand, Mr Jamali says he has the support of 180 members, i.e. PML-Q’s 118, National Alliance’s 16, and PPP-Sherpao’s 2; it also claims still unannounced support of the 17-seat Muttahida Qaumi Movement and five-seat PML-Functional of Pir Pagara.

But political sources said a demand by PML-Q parliamentary leader Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain in a television interview on Tuesday for a postponement of the assembly session could create doubts about his party’s claims of majority.

President Musharraf, a key US ally in the war on terror, will retain an overall grip on the government even after a civilian prime minister is installed next week. But strategic analysts said the presence of an MMA prime minister at the Centre while the alliance will also have its administration in the NWFP, could hit Pakistan’s role in the war.

Many leaders and activists of the Taliban have been the students of Madressahs run by the MMA parties, some of whose leaders had last year threatened to burn down the US-held air bases in Pakistan and send volunteers to fight the US-led forces in Afghanistan.

Political sources said the PPP and PML-N alliance with the MMA was a move to avenge Gen Musharraf’s vow to deny both Ms Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif any role in the country’s political future by barring them from contesting the elections and banning them from ever becoming prime minister again because they have held the office twice each for short-lived terms.