ISLAMABAD, Feb 25: The Iraqi crisis and President Pervez Musharraf’s Legal Framework Order that gives him sweeping powers are likely to dominate proceedings at the first regular session of the National Assembly beginning on Wednesday.

The session will be the first to take up normal legislative business since the election of the 342-seat lower house last October.

Parliamentary sources said the opposition parties were expected to raise the issues of a possible US-led attack on Iraq and the LFO they have vowed to throw out.

Other matters likely to generate a parliamentary heat would include the US-led military operations in Afghanistan and tensions with India over the Kashmir issue.

A comprehensive debate on foreign policy is also expected during the session, which according to National Assembly secretary Mehmood Saleem would last until Moharram holidays next month.

He told Dawn that though the LFO was not on the agenda, the issue could be discussed through points of order or other motions.

Pakistan Muslim League-Q’s parliamentary leader Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain has promised a full debate on the LFO, which President Pervez Musharraf decreed last November as a constitutional amendment package, empowering him to head an overseeing National Security Council, sack a prime minister and dissolve parliament.

Opposition sources said 25 to 30 resolutions and adjournment motions had been sent to the assembly secretariat seeking a discussion on Iraq, most of them by members of the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal.

Another important business for the session will be election on Thursday of the four senators from the federal capital Islamabad by all members of the National Assembly and of eight senators from the federally administered tribal areas by 12 MNAs from the northwestern tribal agencies.

The first day’s proceedings will be keenly watched by political observers because of the likely appearance of seven Fata MNAs who were reported to have been confined at the residence of NWFP chief minister Akram Khan Durrani in a bid to block any government move to influence them.

The Iraq issue, on which Pakistan — currently a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council — has avoided to take a clear stand though is likely to go along with the United States and Britain, will also reveal policy contradictions within the opposition led by the People’s Party Parliamentarians and the MMA.

Though the PPP regards use of force against Iraq as unjustified, it does not want to be seen taking an anti-US line in the same way as it looked the other way when US-led forces began military operations in Afghanistan in October 2001 to punish the Taliban government.

But standing up to help Iraq will be a jihad for the MMA, which swept the October elections in the NWFP and Balochistan chiefly because of anti-American sentiments over the Afghan war.

“If Iraq is attacked and the Iraqi government asks for it..., helping Iraq according to one’s means will be a jihad,” MMA’s soft-spoken chief Maulana Shah Ahmad Noorani said on a private television channel on Monday night.

PPP’s self-exiled leader Benazir Bhutto told another television channel that she would not take part in anti-war protests but had left domestic policy of her party on the issue to the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy headed by veteran politician Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan.

A more hawkish approach is expected from MMA’s two main component parties — the Jamaat-i-Islami and Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam — after the completion of the Senate elections that had forced the MMA to soften their tone because of adjustments with the ruling party on some seats.

Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali’s government is also likely to come under attack over President Pervez Musharraf’s policy to support the military operations against the remnants of Al Qaeda and Taliban, especially in the tribal areas.

Despite the world focus on Iraq, the three-month-old Jamali government is unlikely to escape the opposition howls and thunder over whether the LFO has become a part of the partially revived Constitution or still needs a parliamentary approval.

Jamaat-i-Islami chief Qazi Hussain Ahmed has said he will not be in parliament if the LFO remains a part of the Constitution in its present shape — that also gives the president the previously prime ministerial powers to appoint armed forces chiefs and provincial governors, who in turn can dissolve provincial assemblies and sack chief ministers.

It is still unclear which of the many ordinances issued by President Musharraf would be brought before the National Assembly.

The first day’s proceedings are due to start at 3pm with oath-taking by 10 new members of the National Assembly elected in bye-election held last month.

Before the start of other business, the House is likely to pray for the victims of last Thursday’s crash of a Pakistan Air Force plane in which PAF chief Air Chief Marshal Mushaf Ali Mir, his wife and 15 others, including some senior PAF officers, were killed.