November 23, 2002	Saturday	Ramazan 17, 1423

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ISLAMABAD, Nov 22: Maulana Fazlur Rehman is set to become the opposition leader in the National Assembly, sources close to the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal told Dawn on Friday.

A Jamaat-i-Islami leader claimed that JI chief Qazi Hussain Ahmed would be the opposition leader as he was elected parliamentary leader of the alliance much before the election of the prime minister.

MMA leader Hafiz Hussain Ahmed said that the Jamaat-i-Islami leader was elected parliamentary leader of the alliance and would remain so. “According to parliamentary traditions one who trails in numbers game in the election for leader of the House is a natural choice for the leader of the opposition,” Mr Ahmed said.

Going by the principle, the PPP had lost the race for the second strongest slot in the National Assembly by losing its 10 votes to pro-government coalition led by the PML-Q, said political observers.

A leader of the MMA said that Makhdoom Amin Fahim of the PPP or Makhdoom Shah Mehmud Qureshi may be nominated as deputy leader of the opposition.

When asked whether Qazi Hussain Ahmed, being the parliamentary leader of the MMA, would not be given the slot of opposition leader, the MMA leader said, he would continue to be the parliamentary leader of the religio-political alliance as would Amin Fahim be in the case of the PPP and Javed Hashmi of PML-N.

Mr Rehman received 86 votes for the slot of the prime minister against Jamali’s 172 on Thursday stood to be the most effective opposition leader when he spoke on the LFO and then delivering the welcome speech for the prime minister elect.

The Maulana even left many other leaders including Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali, Makhdoom Amin Fahim and the others behind in challenging the status quo as well as the newly elected speaker of the House.

The opposition leader has attained even more significance in view of the emerging situation when the treasury side is on a very tight rope with only one-vote majority.

However, one thing which gives some satisfaction to the Jamali-led fragile government is that the two major opposition groups, the MMA and PPP, have so far demonstrated their agreement to disagree on making a coalition between themselves.

They failed to field a single candidate against Jamali even though they had lost the vital ten votes of forward bloc in the People’s Party Parliamentarians.