November 15, 2002	Friday	Ramazan 9, 1423

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ISLAMABAD, Nov 14: A group of ten MNAs-elect of People’s Party Parliamentarians on Thursday formed a forward block, claiming that the move had been made to break the political “deadlock” threatening the revival of democratic system in the country.

Though the reports of defection in the PPP ranks were in the air for the last several days, the formal announcement came in the wake of the failure of negotiations going on between the Pakistan Muslim League-Q and the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal.

The newly-formed group at a joint press conference late on Thursday night did not mention the name of the candidate or the party they were going to support in the newly elected National Assembly scheduled to meet here on Saturday.

A former PPP minister, Rao Sikandar Iqbal, who is going to lead the group in the National Assembly, made an opening statement, justifying their decision of forming a separate group within the party.

Besides Faisal Saleh Hayyat and Rao Sikandar Iqbal, Noraiz Shakoor, Malik Amir Waran, Rana Miraj, Khalid Lund, Rais Munir, Nayyat Tanveer Syed, Malik Zaheer and Dr Nisar are in the group.

“The group has been formed in the supreme national interest,” Iqbal read out from a written statement. He said they had decided to rise above the personal and party interest for the sake of democracy.

He said the objective was that the power should be transferred from the military government to the elected representatives of the people.

The first and foremost job of the army is to defend the territorial boundaries of the country and it should return to take up this task at the earliest, he said.

Faisal Saleh Hayyat, who was the driving force behind the formation of this splinter group, said they were not leaving the party and still reposed confidence in the leadership of Benazir Bhutto.

On a specific question that whom they were going to support, he said: “It would be announced later on.”

However, he criticised all the three major parties and blamed them for the present logjam.