September 16, 2003	Tuesday	Rajab 18, 1424

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ISLAMABAD, Sept 15: The recent statements of Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali on the president’s uniform and PML-Q president Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain’s utterances on the Legal Framework Order (LFO) have forced the MMA leadership to reconsider its earlier decision to accept the government’s offer for talks.

“We will decide in our supreme council meeting on Tuesday evening whether or not to participate in the talks,” said MMA’s parliamentary party leader Qazi Hussain Ahmed while talking to reporters at the cafeteria of the Parliament House after boycotting the assembly proceedings with other opposition parties here on Monday.

Interestingly, no leader of the JUI-F attended the National Assembly session on Monday and they were absent from the opposition’s press conference as well, giving credence to media reports that the MMA was facing internal divisions.

The JI chief said the statements of the prime minister and the PML-Q chief had complicated the matter, and the government would have to clarify its stand on the LFO “before inviting us for talks.”

He said the success of the talks or otherwise depended upon the government’s attitude. He said if the government wanted to make the talks successful then it would have to include the cutaway date for the removal of the president’s uniform in the proposed constitutional package.

The MMA, he said, could not extend this date beyond October 2004 and no package would be acceptable to the alliance without a specific cutaway date being mentioned in it.

He claimed that during the previous talks, the government had agreed to make Article 63(d) operative. The Article 63(d) states that a person cannot become a member of parliament if he “holds an office of profit in the service of Pakistan”.

He said the MMA was ready to bring people onto the streets and it had completed all preparations for launching a mass movement against the government.

When his attention was drawn towards the absence of the JUI-F leadership in the assembly and at the press conference, the JI chief said: “I am representing them here as MMA leader.”

Qazi said the government wanted to put Pakistan under US dominion. He said Afghanistan had become a US colony and the American soldiers were there on the country’s borders thanks to Gen Musharraf’ foreign policy.

He also criticized Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri’s statement suggesting deployment of Saarc troops in Kashmir to monitor “terrorism”. He regretted that the country had been placed at 144th position in the Human Development Index.

Another MMA leader Liaquat Baloch said all opposition parties were united on the LFO issue. He said the MMA had participated in the talks as it wanted to bring to an end the current constitutional crisis through dialogue. He categorically stated that the MMA considered the LFO illegal and unconstitutional.

Mr Baloch asked the prime minister to invite other opposition parties as well in the discussion before finalizing the constitutional package.

The MMA leader said it was decided in the talks held in Lahore and the government’s representative S.M. Zafar had himself announced that the constitutional amendment bill would be presented before parliament.

He said like previous dictators, Gen Musharraf had been trying to divide the nation by raising the Kalabagh dam issue. He said Gen Musharraf had bypassed parliament and the prime minister by announcing a matter of national interest on TV and radio. He claimed that the political parties were capable of resolving the water crisis.

He announced that the MMA would hold protest demonstrations against the government’s foreign policy in front of press clubs of all the major cities of the country on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, if the talks are held between the MMA and the government on Tuesday, as previously planned, they are likely to focus chiefly on the issue of extension granted to the judges of the superior courts.

The government is now more flexible on this matter, said an insider.

The govt-MMA talks in Lahore had discussed at length the issue of judges’ retirement age.

According to reliable official sources, the government had agreed for the first time during that meeting that the issue should be resolved keeping in mind the views of the lawyers’ community.

The lawyers had taken a tough stand on the question of LFO, especially on the three-year extension given to judges who had validated every act of the military government in the last three years.

The government is trying to persuade the MMA to agree to its proposal that instead of relieving those judges of the superior courts who had attained the constitutional age of superannuation, the period of their service extension be reduced to two years.

The MMA leadership, however, is only willing to give extension of one year instead of two. Those following the goings-on expect that a middle ground would be found.

After the resolution of this matter, only the issue of uniform of President Gen Pervez Musharraf would remain to be resolved.

The sources said that President Musharraf was ready to indicate even the day when he would lay down his uniform, but only in confidence to the top leadership of MMA.

The sources said if the MMA insisted that the matter should be put in writing then everything would collapse as the president wants to keep certain quarters guessing about his retirement date.

The government and the MMA teams have already narrowed down their differences on the NSC and article 58(2)(B). In the last round of talks, the government and the MMA had even seen the agreed drafts of the new-look NSC and Article 58 (2)(B).