December 18, 2002	Wednesday	Shawwal 13, 1423

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PESHAWAR, Dec 17: The supreme council of the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal, which met here on Tuesday, decided not to support Prime Minister Zafarullah Jamali at the time of the vote of confidence and would sit on opposition benches in the National Assembly.

Briefing newsmen after the meeting, MMA general secretary, Maulana Fazlur Rahman said: “Prime minister Jamali has failed to meet the MMA demands. Therefore, we have decided to sit on opposition benches in the National Assembly and will not support him during vote of confidence.”

He said initially the alliance had extended a conditional support to Mr Jamali and had put forward certain demands.

He said the MMA had demanded that the Legal Framework Order should not be made a part of the 1973 Constitution, Article 58(2)(b) should be abolished, National Security Council should also be abolished as it was a supra-constitutional body, President Musharraf should quit the office of the chief of army staff, powers of the president be curtailed and alliance’s reservations on district governments should be removed.

Maulana Fazl said that so far the alliance had not received any positive response from Zafarullah Jamali.

“We will play the role of an effective opposition in the National Assembly.” However, he added that the MMA’s doors would remain open for dialogues and differences with the federal government would not affect the MMA-PML-Q coalition government in Balochistan.

Maulana Fazl said that the meeting also decided to file a requisition for convening the National Assembly session at the earliest to discuss vital national issues.

The council, he said, also demanded of the government to announce a schedule for Senate elections. The council asked the interested candidates to submit their applications till Jan 10, 2003.

The meeting strongly condemned the US policies on Iraq and decided to observe a protest day all over the country on Jan 3. The MMA component parties had been directed to hold protest rallies in that connection, he added.