ISLAMABAD April 18: MMA secretary-general Maulana Fazlur Rahman on Friday proposed that President Pervez Musharraf should hold direct talks with the opposition on a constitutional package to end the current political deadlock.
Speaking at a news conference at parliament house, Maulana Fazlur Rahman said, Gen Ziaul Haq had held direct talks with the opposition on a constitutional package which had ended the political impasse in 1985 and Gen Musharraf should follow suit.
He alleged that neither the Jamali government nor the Pakistan Muslim League (Q)’s negotiating team had any credible mandate from the president for a give-and-take in talks with the opposition.
Responding to the MMA leader’s demand for direct talks with Gen Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan Muslim League (Q) president and chief negotiator Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain said that in future Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali will himself hold talks with the opposition.
Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain said the opposition after agreeing to most points of the LFO was now giving wrong explanations. He welcomed the desire of Maulana Fazlur Rahman to meet the president directly to resolve the constitutional crisis.
Maulana Fazl, who is also chief of his own faction of JUI said, the opposition’s talks with the ruling party, which started in November last year was based on the understanding that since the coalition on its own lacked a two thirds majority in parliament it wanted the support of the MMA to have the LFO passed.
He however regretted that despite the fact that both sides had agreed on 23 out of 29 articles of the LFO, the government side failed to give a constitutional package which would have broken the deadlock.
When asked whether the opposition’s attitude inside the house was within the parameters of democratic norms, the Maulana said: “This unusual hue and cry was because of the anger and humiliation that the opposition felt on the government’s delayed supply of the LFO-carrying copies of the constitution”.
To a query about the opposition’s reaction to a possible overture of talks from the treasury side, the JUI chief said: “We have never shut the doors on political dialogue and we will join any such negotiations which can end present crises.”
He said the government’s suggestion that if the opposition wanted to debate LFO, it should bring it to the assembly in shape of a bill was illogical as all bills were traditionally brought to the house by the treasury benches.
The MMA leader, who is also alliance’s nominee for the office of leader of the opposition, said the entire opposition was united on a one-point agenda that they will continue the struggle to safeguard the sovereignty and supremacy of parliament.
He proposed that the government should prepare and bring for the house’s scrutiny a package of constitutional amendments including the ones which make part of LFO.
Referring to a statement of Prime Minister Jamali that the opposition was given undue coverage by the media, he said: “I can claim that I can attract more media coverage even without being in the MNA while the prime minister will lose the media encircling him the day he relinquishes his present position.”
