ISLAMABAD, April 18: Pakistan Muslim League (PML-Q) President Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain said on Friday the government will show flexibility in order to break the ‘deadlock’ over the controversial Legal Framework Order (LFO).
He told reporters at the National Assembly that the government was ready to initiate dialogue with the joint opposition to resolve the issue. “The government has to show flexibility otherwise the country would plunge into a political crisis,” he said.
However, he urged the opposition to act sagaciously and allow democracy to flourish.
The PML-Q chief said the current session of the National Assembly was requisitioned by his party and it would be conducted according to its agenda.
The agenda would be presented before the lower house on Monday.
Meanwhile, a leader of People’s Party Parliamentarians (PPP), Nawab Yousaf Talpur, told reporters that Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali had invited PPP parliamentary leader Makhdoom Amin Fahim in his chamber for negotiations on LFO.
Answering a query about the invitation, Mr Talpur said the PPP parliamentary leader turned down the invitation and did not meet the PM in the National Assembly.
A leader of Pakistan Muslim League (N), Chaudhry Nisar Ahmed, said the opposition would have no objection to having a uniformed president if he was elected by a two-third majority of the National Assembly.
He said the government should move a bill in parliament to get the LFO approved by both of its houses. Another PPP leader, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, said the government had so far not made any serious attempt at removing the controversial clauses of LFO that had been incorporated into the Constitution.
Responding to a question about the prevailing deadlock on LFO, he said: “It is the responsibility of the government to think where the country is headed due to the ‘one-man show’ and political instability,” he said.
He said the steering committee formed by the government to deal with the issue of LFO had so far failed to find out the best possible way to resolve it.
