ISLAMABAD, April 18: The crisis over presidential powers deepened on Friday as protesting opposition parties blocked both houses of parliament while the government only promised dialogue to end the impasse.
The opposition first stalled the National Assembly for the second day running with slogan-chanting against President Pervez Musharraf and the Legal Framework Order (LFO), forcing Speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain to adjourn the house until Monday.
But they reserved their real talent for protest for the start of a Senate session in the afternoon where they did not allow any proceedings for hours with the same chants as in the National Assembly — “No LFO, no”, “Go Musharraf, go”.
The opposition Senators carried on slogan-chanting and desk thumping for four and half hours in the longest such protest in Pakistan’s parliamentary history before the upper house chairman Mohammedmian Soomro prorogued the house at about midnight.
Despite the government promises and the opposition’s declared willingness for a dialogue, there was no sign of the two sides agreeing to any meeting.
The opposition Senators stood in their seats for slogan-chanting and resorted to a thumping of their desks with their official leather folders that rent through the Senate hall and often sounded like bursts of fire-crackers.
The opposition chants at the start of the Senate session, which was requisitioned by the opposition parties to discuss Pakistan’s security and economic concerns in the present global scenario, was a one-sided affair.
But after an unusually long break of one and a half hours for “Maghreb” prayers, women members on the treasury benches and some of their male colleagues also chanted pro-Musharraf and pro-LFO slogans as the ruling coalition seemed bent upon tiring out the opposition.
“Yes Musharraf, yes” and “LFO is Constitution and is acceptable,” they chanted, though mostly drowned by louder opposition slogans and desk-thumping, which often appeared to be telling for aging Senators like MMA leader Maulana Shah Ahmad Noorani.
A brief scuffle broke out between an opposition and a ruling coalition Senator after a ruling party woman Senator removed an anti-LFO opposition banner from the chairman’s rostrum and tied it around her head.
But the two men were separated by other Senators from both sides of the house.
JAMALI EAGER FOR TALKS: Before that Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali also watched the post-Maghreb rumpus in the Senate after telling reporters that his government wanted to hold talks with the opposition without involving President Musharraf.
The issue is between the opposition and the government while “all are equal before the president”, he said and added: “We will not give the trouble to the president (to take part in the dialogue).”
But he said he had no objection if the opposition parties wanted to talk to the president whom he called as “my boss”, and added: “But they can go forward only if they were able to cross us. They have seen only one side of the picture yet,” he said without elaborating.
The prime minister called the mode of opposition protest as “most unbecoming parliamentary behaviour”.
Asked if the deadlock over the LFO posed any danger of dissolution of the newly-elected National Assembly, he said: “While human life is always in danger, an assembly was nothing bigger.”
“If people want the assembly will run. A parliament can be packed up according to the wishes of the people but not at the asking of a few people,” he said.
Mr Jamali said he had also invited the PPP and the PML(N) for talks to resolve the LFO row after similar talks with the MMA and was awaiting their reply.
But both parties have already said they could have talks with the government only as part of the combined opposition rather than doing it separately.
NATIONAL ASSEMBLY PROTEST: At the National Assembly also opposition members stood up in their seats and began thumping their desks and chanting “No LFO, no”, “Go Musharraf, go” immediately after the recitation of verses from the Holy Quran.
PPP members, who were in the forefront of the noisy protests during previous sittings, were absent from the assembly hall when the session began because they were still continuing a meeting to discuss their protest plans.
But their colleagues from the MMA, PML-N and other allies did not hesitate to begin slogan-shouting immediately after the speaker called for the start of the question hour.
PPP members also entered the hall a minute later, chanting the same slogans and continued doing so before the speaker finally adjourned the house until 5.30pm on Monday because of the disorder.
The brief PPP absence seemed to be a deliberate act to show opposition unity against the LFO in view of remarks by some leaders of the ruling PML-Q that the PPP and PML-N, on orders from their exiled leaders and ex-prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, were forcing the MMA to take a hard line.
Opposition parties reaffirmed on Friday to carry on their protest and accused the ruling party of shunning a promised dialogue to end the deadlock.
While PML-Q president Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain promised a flexible approach after a meeting with Prime Minister Jamali, opposition spokesmen alleged that the ruling party lacked the courage to persuade President Musharraf to shed powers assumed through the LFO.
“Politicians cannot shut the door for dialogue,” Information and Media Development Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed told reporters. But he told a questioner: “We are not taking the LFO to parliament.”
PML-Q sources said the party would take along representatives of its allies in future talks with the opposition over the LFO.
“They are following a trench mentality,” PPP member Aitzaz Ahsan, a former interior minister, remarked about the attitude of the ruling party, which he said was afraid of telling the truth to the president.
“They should go and talk to the president. They have first to tell him that he will go with the assembly (if he dissolved it),” Mr Ahsan said, recalling that none of the Pakistani presidents could stay in power after dissolving the National Assembly.
Opposition sources said the opposition parties were also planning to start a movement outside parliament against the LFO.
The government says presidential decrees forming the LFO have become part of the Constitution because of a Supreme Court ruling in May 2000 that upheld Gen Musharraf’s October 12, 1999, coup and authorized him to make constitutional amendments needed for his promised reforms.
