September 18, 2003	Thursday	Rajab 20, 1424

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LAHORE/ISLAMABAD, Sept 17: The Alliance for Restoration of Democracy has decided to step up pressure on Gen Pervez Musharraf to quit and withdraw the controversial Legal Framework Order by holding a series of public meetings in all the four provinces.

Heads of the ARD components will meet in Islamabad on Sept 25 to finalize the dates and discuss other steps the alliance should take to bring the rulers to terms.

According to ARD sources, a public meeting is proposed to be held in Quetta on Oct 3. This will be followed by one in Karachi on Oct 5 and Peshawar on Oct 10.

A public meeting will be held at Gujranwala on Oct 12, on which day is falling the anniversary of the overthrow of the PML-N government.

For Multan, Faisalabad, Abbotabad and Hyderabad the tentative dates are Oct 19, 24 and 31, respectively.

It has been proposed that a meeting should be held in Rawalpindi on Nov 7.

The final announcement in this regard would be made by ARD chief Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan after the party heads meeting.

The Nawabzada, who has recently returned from abroad after meeting Benazir Bhutto in London and Nawaz Sharif in Jeddah, would arrive in Islamabad on Sept 22.

According to a source in the ARD, the meeting has been called after one week because by that time the nation would have come to know about the outcome of the ongoing talks between the government and the MMA.

About the mass contact campaign, he said it had been decided that there should not be an interval of more than three days between the rallies to keep the momentum.

Meanwhile, the Sept 25 meeting is being considered a crucial one as it is being held amid reports of rift within the ARD over the ongoing protest strategy against the LFO in the National Assembly.

Interviews with some MNAs, mostly belonging to the People’s Party Parliamentarians (PPP), revealed that they were not happy with the present policy of the ARD regarding its protest against the LFO. Most of them were in favour of “partial participation” in the assembly proceedings.

They were of the view that the opposition’s protest of desk-thumping and slogan-shouting had become a routine matter and no-one was paying any heed to it. They said the public, which already had a very negative image of the politicians, had started saying that the politicians were doing exactly what Gen Musharraf has been accusing them of doing all these 50 years.

By not criticizing Gen Musharraf on the floor of the assembly we are doing him a favour, said one of the MNAs who did not want to be named. “At least, we should take part in the assembly proceedings on private members’ day,” he added.

The PPP MNAs were also not happy over the decision of appointing Javed Hashmi as the parliamentary leader of the ARD. They said the ARD had been hijacked by the MMA and the PPP had been hijacked by the 18-member PML-N. One of the MNAs said the PML-N was fighting a “personal war” with Gen Musharraf while the PPP’s struggle was based on issues and principles.

When asked whether it was not a good omen for the country’s political future that the two major parties, which remained involved in confrontation with each other in the past, had joined hands, they said it was only a temporary adjustment.

When asked what would they do if the ARD leadership continued to ignore them, they said it would be decided after the outcome of the government-MMA talks.

They said it was yet to be seen what strategy would be adopted by the ARD if the MMA reached an agreement with the government. All of them, however, ruled out any possibility of joining the Patriots despite the government pressure as well as its lucrative offers.