HYDERABAD, April 11: Muttahida-Majlis-i-Amal chief Maulana Shah Ahmed Noorani has rejected reports that the MMA has struck a deal with the government on the Legal Framework Order.

Similarly, he said, the MMA was also not ready to accept the National Security Council, Article 58(2)b of the Constitution, which empowers president to dissolve parliament, and the chief of army staff as president.

Talking to newsmen here on Friday at the residence of a local leader of the Jamiat-i-Ulema-i-Pakistan, Mohammad Hussain, Maulana Noorani said that the MMA was not going to accept unconstitutional and undemocratic powers of President Gen Pervez Musharraf.

He held President Musharraf responsible for the ongoing deadlock over the LFO, saying that the president had adopted a stubborn attitude on the LFO.

Reiterating the MMA’s demand for a full time chief of army staff, he said that fast changing world scenario had made it compulsory that President Musharraf should leave the post of the president and concentrate on his army office.

He said that the MMA had adopted a principled stand on the LFO which he described as an illegal order, and added that an individual had no right to amend 29 articles and 69 sub-clauses of the Constitution.

He said that likewise, the apex court could not vest such right in any individual when the court itself had no right to amend the Constitution.

The MMA leader argued that the offices of president and prime minister were public offices and no government servant had any moral or legal right to assume them. He added that the COAS was a government servant therefore he could not become president of the country.

He said that a procedure had been defined in Constitution about election of president in shape of the electoral college comprising senate, national assembly and four provincial assemblies.

Maulana Noorani insisted that the MMA was not ready to accept unconstitutional and undemocratic powers of the president which he had conferred upon himself through the LFO.

He said that the LFO was a very important issue because it concerned the prestige of millions of voters of the country.

He said that the MMA believed in the supremacy of 1973 Constitution and the parliament and wanted to make Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Jamali more powerful and that was why it was pressing the LFO issue in the parliament.

Referring to the compromise resolution, adopted by Senate regarding the US-UK war on Iraq, he admitted that the resolution had been watered down.

He maintained that it was the need of the hour that a full time COAS should lead the armed forces given the fact that India was hurling threats at the instance of USA.

He maintained that the US was working on the agenda of Greater Israel and said that after Iraq, US would either turn to Iran or Syria.

Insisting that they were first Muslims and then Pakistanis, the MMA president accused the rulers of following policies of the USA.

SU: On the third day of the Sindh University Founder’s Week celebrations, various departments and institutes organized many programmes at the Allama I. I. Qazi Campus, Jamshoro, on Friday.