May 1, 2003	Thursday	Safar 28, 1424

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ISLAMABAD, April 30: The government is likely to offer a package of “certain favours” to the opposition, including accepting the leader of the opposition in the Senate as one of the members of the controversial National Security Council (NSC).

Sources close to the president told Dawn here on Wednesday that President Gen Pervez Musharraf had expressed his willingness to enlarge the composition of the NSC by also including the leader of the opposition in the Senate in that advisory body.

The president has given a go-ahead signal to Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali to concede certain favours to the opposition during talks on the Legal Framework Order (LFO), the sources said.

The month of May is said to be crucial for the government to get the opposition round to holding a joint sitting of parliament without any rumpus, and to ensure a smooth budget session in June.

Under proposals being considered now, the president may give up his powers under article 58(2)(B) of the Constitution to send the whole assembly packing. Instead, he may retain the power to dismiss the government only, the sources said.

The combined opposition could also be obliged by withdrawing the three-year raise granted to the Supreme Court and high court judges in their retirement age limit.

“The president is ready to have some compromise solution on a few things, but not on his military uniform,” said a ministerial source.

He said the president was informed by the MMA, through a middleman, that he (Gen Musharraf) should announce that he will quit the COAS office after three years. And once he did that, he could be jointly elected president by the ruling PML(Q) and the MMA.

The sources said both the sides now wanted a face-saving device which could facilitate ironing out of their differences during formal talks to be started soon.

The Pakistan People’s Party appears to have softened its stand against the president as a top party leader, Syed Kurshid Shah, informally met some PML (Q) members on Wednesday after having arrived from Dubai where he had gone to meet his leader Benazir Bhutto.

The PPP has been appreciating some of the provisions of the LFO like joint electorates, more representation to women and reduction in the voters’ age limit to 18 years.

However, the sources said, things did not appear to be improving between the president and the PML(N).

Mr Jamali’s meeting with chief of the PML (Functional) Pir Pagara in Karachi on Tuesday went well in which the spiritual leader of Hurs reportedly assured the PM of his help to remove differences between the government and the opposition over the LFO.

The PML (F), was all set now to use its influence on PPP and others in favour of the president, a source claimed.

The opposition will be told in formal talks with the government that emerging international scenario did not permit the president to relinquish some of his important powers, including that of the army chief, the sources said.

The Americans have informed the president that their agenda in Afghanistan was not likely to end before 2007, and that during this period they wanted Musharraf to be at the helm, the sources claimed.

“President Musharraf has been requested by the Americans to help set up a regular force of 70,000 armymen in Afghanistan”, a source said, hoping that the deadlock between the government and the opposition will be removed through some give-and-take.

On the other hand, the sources said, chief of PML (Junejo) Hamid Nasir Chattah, chief of the National Alliance, Farooq Leghari, Ijaz ul Haq, and independent MNAs like Allama Tahirul Qadri and Maulana Azam Tariq would start meeting the opposition leaders on behalf of the president to have some compromise solution on the LFO.