June 24, 2003	Tuesday	Rabi-us-Sani 23,1424

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ISLAMABAD, June 23: As the clock has begun ticking for a vote on his political future, National Assembly Speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain appears certain to keep his job, but at a price set by his critics.

Opposition parties are determined to use their no-confidence move against him to punish him for the ruling he gave to uphold President Pervez Musharraf’s controversial power-vesting Legal Framework Order (LFO) they are opposing.

At the end of a mandatory seven-day period, the 342-seat Assembly must meet on June 28 or the next working day on June 30 to take up the no-confidence motion that the representatives of opposition parties deposited with the lower house secretariat last Friday.

Parliamentary sources said a vote could be held on the same day or afterwards at the end of what could be an acrimonious and noisy debate to be chaired by deputy speaker Sardar Mohammad Yaqub.

But the sources said there seemed to be no chance of the speaker, who has refused to resign, losing the vote when all the sinews of the government would be available to defeat the move.

However, he is likely to emerge badly bruised from a debate the opposition parties will use as a renewed assault on the LFO and its adherents.

NUMBERS: With the declared support of 191 members, the ruling coalition, led by the Pakistan Muslim League- Q (123 members), has sufficient numbers to win the secret ballot to be held on the issue while the opposition has only about 150 members and must have 172 to carry the day.

Parliamentary sources said there was little chance of any major side-switching despite rival claims by both the government and opposition that they were sure to attract turncoats from each other’s camps.

But the opposition’s large battery of silver-tongued orators is likely to dominate the debate as it did in previous parliamentary encounters when the treasury benches could only feebly defend the LFO.

It will be the second time in Pakistan’s parliamentary history that a National Assembly speaker will face a no-confidence motion, coming nearly 14 years after Syed Fakhr Zaman was ousted in a move backed by then military president Mohammad Ziaul Haq.

That ouster — for sending disqualification petitions against then prime minister Mohammad Khan Junejo and some his colleagues to the Election Commission for forming a political party after being elected to the house in a party-less election — gave Mr Imam some political stature, though it was eroded by other political developments later on.

TARGET: The present opposition move is aimed to hit Speaker Amir Hussain’s political position, which enjoyed a high point when he chaired a bipartisan parliamentary committee that discussed contentious points of presidential decrees forming the LFO last month and sent a report to Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali.

But the speaker suddenly lost the opposition’s goodwill when he chose to give his ruling in favour of the LFO on June 14 at the end of the assembly budget session when the opposition was boycotting the proceedings after sitting over the matter for more than six months.

Opposition parties accuse him of giving the ruling under government pressure to give President Musharraf an additional argument to defend the LFO while visiting Britain, the United States, France and Germany.

The speaker denies this, saying he has given a ruling that had been pending since some opposition members had questioned his pro-LFO statement to reporters in November.

But the ruling did raise eyebrows as ruling coalition members seemed to be falling over themselves to assure the president of their support and confidence while the opposition parties questioned his right to speak for Pakistan on the ground that he simultaneously held the offices of president and chief of the army staff under the LFO they do not recognize.