December 25, 2002	Wednesday	Shawwal 20, 1423

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ISLAMABAD, Dec 24: Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali seems headed for a slender parliamentary vote of confidence next week, though the opposition is not interested to unsettle him at this stage.

But the prime minister must be ready for a lot of flak when he will seek the mandatory vote from the National Assembly, which has been called to session for Dec 30.

Jamali appears confident to win the vote much before the 60-day deadline set in the partially revived Constitution.

But Pakistan Muslim League (Quaid-i-Azam) could hardly add any group to its list of allies after winning the prime ministerial election by one vote, thanks to turncoats from the People’s Party Parliamentarians and an eleventh-hour support from the Muttahida Qaumi Movement.

The party has added more feathers to its cap by cobbling together governing coalitions in Balochistan and Sindh but those achievements were again marked by charges of “horse-trading” that had tarnished its success in the centre.

Political sources said Jamali had hoped to make substantial gains over his Nov 21 election tally of 172 votes until the National Assembly’s confidence vote.

But they said such prospects were damaged by a rift within the PML-Q and the lack of incentives left for any new turncoats compared to the bonanza of cabinet posts for early PPP defectors, who face possible expulsion from the party.

The PML-Q rift was swept under the carpet when President Pervez Musharraf told rival groups to shut up after a public furore over the now-withdrawn no-confidence move against party president Mian Mohammad Azhar — though at the cost of revealing to the general public who actually holds the party’s strings.

But controversial developments that led to the PML-led ruling coalition in Sindh dashed Jamali’s hopes for the MMA’s support in the confidence vote after the alliance had joined the PML-led government in Balochistan.

That forced the prime minister to go on what looked like a house-to-house campaign in Punjab to renew alliances with smaller groups.

The PML-Q’s Parliamentary Leader Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain has predicted around 180 votes for Jamali in Monday’s confidence vote and more defections from the PPP to the PPP-Patriots, which has raised its strength in the National Assembly to 14 from 10 and five in the Sindh Assembly.

A PPP spokesman said on Tuesday an action against the first batch of defectors — including group leader and Defence Minister Rao Sikandar Iqbal, Interior Minister Makhdoom Faisal Saleh Hayat and Petroleum and Natural Resources Minister Naurez Shakoor — was expected in the next two days.

Spokesman Farhatullah Babar said the group members were suspended from the party’s central committee and later asked to give up their government jobs, which they had not done.