KARACHI/ISLAMABAD, Nov 9: A joint session of the National Security Council and the cabinet will be held on Monday to take a decision for breaking the political impasse, Interior Minister Moinuddin Haider said on Saturday.
He was talking to newsmen at the inauguration of a blood processing laboratory at the Fatmid Foundation in Karachi.
In reply to a question, the minister said there was no delay by the government in the transfer of power, adding that the National Assembly session had been postponed at the request of political parties to help them reach a consensus on the formation of a stable government.
He said the joint meeting on Monday might also spell out a timeframe. He did not elaborate what the timeframe would be for.
Mr Haider was of the opinion that if the political parties did not arrive at a settlement before the NA session then, due to
the deadlock in parliament, making another reference to people might become unavoidable.
It appeared from Mr Haider’s remarks that the regime wanted to ensure that the major political parties reached some understanding over the controversial amendments before they actually went to the assemblies.
“The National Assembly session was deferred at the request of political parties. The government wants the political parties to settle all issues outside parliament,” Mr Haider said.
According to a letter circulated among concerned departments and ministries in Islamabad, President Gen Pervez Musharraf has called the joint meeting of the cabinet and the NSC on Monday to finalize the strategy to overcome the political crisis in the country.
An official announcement about the meeting may be made on Sunday.
“It is expected that the final decision regarding fresh elections or the formation of a government would be taken at the meeting,” an informed source in the cabinet division told Dawn.
Some important decisions are likely to be taken at the meeting, including the transfer of power and fixation of a date for the first session of the National Assembly.
The meeting, to be held with President Musharraf in the chair, will also explore the possibilities of fresh elections. If the deadlock is not broken within the next 24 hours, chances of new elections will increase, the source said.
Similarly, the source said, the possibilities of martial law would also be looked into.
Asked if the delay was due to the regime’s apprehensions about a government headed by the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal in the wake of the prevailing international environment, the interior minister dispelled the impression, saying: “We are not concerned who forms the government”.
He told a questioner that no deal was being negotiated with the People’s Party Parliamentarians (PPP) and explained that facilities provided to Asif Zardari were not connected with any deal.
When pressed to comment on the reported meeting between Asif Zardari and President Pervez Musharraf’s principal secretary, Tariq Aziz, at Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) in Islamabad, the minister expressed ignorance about that.
In reply to a question about the cases pending against PPP Chairperson Benazir Bhutto and Asif Zardari, Mr Haider said that all the cases were to be decided by the courts.
He denied reports that Asif Zardari was given any protocol on his arrival at Karachi on Friday night.
“Asif is being treated as a prisoner and was taken to the hospital in an armoured personnel carrier,” he said.
People’s Party Parliamentarians spokesman Farhatullah Babar in Islamabad did not rule out the possibility of new elections.
When contacted, he agreed that any government that came to power as a result of the recent elections would be quite ‘weak and unstable’.
Mr Babar said the constitutional amendments made by the government had been rejected by the political parties because such amendments could only be made in accordance with the procedure laid down in the Constitution.
An Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal leader in Islamabad, Mian Mohammad Aslam, said there would be no need for fresh elections as the MMA was hopeful that the deadlock would come to an end.
