March 8, 2003	Saturday	Muharram 4, 1424

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ISLAMABAD, March 7: The Pakistan Muslim League-Q and the combined opposition in the National Assembly on Friday blamed each other for the present crisis on the Legal Framework Order that has caused unprecedented pandemonium in the house.

Both sides held separate news conferences after Speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain adjourned the National Assembly until Monday afternoon after another day of the anti-LFO opposition protest blocked proceedings.

PML-Q President Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain said some opposition parties were acting according to directions from their leaders living abroad.

He accused the opposition of deviating from an agreement he had signed on Oct 29 with 11 other leaders, including Maulana Shah Ahmed Noorani, Qazi Hussain Ahmed and Maulana Fazlur Rahman of the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal and Raja Pervez Ashraf of the People’s Party Parliamentarians.

He said the agreement had envisaged restraint on the LFO and continuation of talks in which he volunteered to act as a bridge between political parties and President Pervez Musharraf.

But, in their press conferences, opposition leaders, including PPP chief Makhdoom Amin Fahim and parliamentary party leader of PML-N Makhdoom Javed Hashmi, disputed Chaudhry Shujaat’s statement and rejected the charge that their protest in the house was unparliamentary.

Mr Shujaat Hussain, flanked by federal ministers Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, Humayun Akhtar Khan, Ghaus Bakhsh Mahar and Liaquat Ali Jatoi, said opposition representatives had agreed at a parliamentary advisory committee meeting on Friday morning that their parties would listen to speeches on points of order before resuming the protest they started on Wednesday. But he said the parties changed their mind after taking directions from abroad.

He recalled that his party had agreed with the MMA top leadership during their pre-session meetings on 21 out of 29 articles of LFO and had decided to continue their dialogue on the remaining nine. He, however, said that those who were not part of those meetings took the lead in disrupting the process.

Defending President Pervez Musharraf, he said: “They were chanting ‘Go, go’ slogans against a person who had for the first time in the nation’s history transferred power voluntarily to elected representatives.”

Mr Shujaat Hussain said the PML-Q and its coalition partners were ready to talk to opposition parties on a mechanism of getting out of the mess, and in this President Musharraf would also be consulted.

Qazi Hussain Ahmed said a negotiating team had been set up by the combined opposition to talk to the government side if the latter were willing to open a dialogue. He declared that opposition members of the Senate would not take oath if an attempt was made to administer it under the LFO.

He said the opposition was determined to restore the supremacy and sovereignty of parliament and it was in the interest of Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali also to “join hands with us” in what he called the sacred cause of strengthening democracy and weakening dictatorship.

Qazi Hussain Ahmed said his party had no links with secret terrorist organizations nor did it have any knowledge about the “so-called Al Qaeda”.

He accused the government of trying to twist facts and divert attention from the fact that millions of people had protested against government’s policy on Iraq on the MMA’s call.

MMA secretary-general and Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam leader Maulana Fazlur Rahman accused the PML-Q of taking dictation from the army which in turn, he said, was taking dictation from US President George Bush.

He said the prime minister’s repeated assurances that he would take parliament into confidence on Iraq meant that decisions were taken somewhere else and not in parliament.

Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaaf leader Imran Khan said his party would participate in the MMA’s March 9 march in Rawalpindi as in his opinion the entire nation was against war on Iraq.

He said imposition of the LFO on the Constitution was undemocratic and would deprive parliament of its sovereignty.

Makhdoom Amin Fahim said the LFO could only become part of the Constitution if it was approved by parliament. It would be disrespect to parliament, he said, if any piece of legislation enacted by an individual was made part of the Constitution.

He rejected the impression that the Supreme Court in its verdict had given a free hand to President Musharraf to make whatever amendment he wanted and said the general had crossed the limited authority given by the court.

Javed Hashmi said the PML-N would participate in the MMA march and demanded that the government should not vote in the UN Security Council in favour of war on Iraq.

He acknowledged that his party was taking guidance from former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, as was the PPP from its self-exiled leader Benazir Bhutto.

He said the fact that the two parties, despite the absence of their leaders, had polled between them 12 million votes was ample proof that they were popular parties because of their exiled leaders.

He said the opposition would debate the LFO in the house if the government tabled it in the shape of a bill for approval of parliament.

Pashtunkhwa Milli Awami Party leader Mehmud Khan Achakzai, Jamhoori Watan Party’s Ghulam Haider Bugti and BNP (Mengal) member Abdur Rauf Mengal also expressed their support for the combined opposition campaign for the withdrawal of the LFO.