September 21, 2003	Sunday	Rajab 23, 1424

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LAHORE, Sept 20: A Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal leader said on Saturday that the uniform of Gen Musharraf was the only obstacle left to an overall agreement between the alliance and the ruling party.

Liaquat Baloch, who has been holding talks with the ruling party team to prepare a constitutional package, said while talking to Dawn that differences on the remaining six contentious points could be settled without any difficulty.

He hoped that Gen Musharraf would not make his uniform a question of prestige and set a date to take it off so that parliament, plagued for the past eleven months, could make necessary amendments to the Constitution and steer the country out of the crisis.

In case the general did not heed the sensitivity of the situation, the MMA was not bound to go an extra mile and reach an agreement with the ruling party, he warned.

There is no flexibility in the ruling party’s point of view on the subject of Gen Musharraf’s uniform and nobody finds himself in a position to tell him that he should quit as the army chief.

Gen Musharraf insists that it should be left to him when he should take such a decision.

Mr Baloch said the MMA did not accept the LFO part of the Constitution and this point of view would prevail in the final agreement. Till some accord was formalized, he said, both sides were free to reiterate their respective points of view on the subject.

Referring to the president’s power to dissolve assemblies, Mr Baloch said it had already been explained that justification for such a step would be looked into by the Supreme Court. According to him, there was an unwritten agreement between the two sides that in case the apex court overturned the dissolution order, the president would have to quit.

(The ruling party does not subscribe to this assertion).

The MMA leader said the alliance was convinced that a confidence vote by the president, instead of a formal election through the electoral college, was a better option in the prevailing situation. He said a fresh election would also mean a fresh term of five years which the MMA would not like to give. But, he said, if Gen Musharraf sought a confidence vote from the National Assembly, the Senate and provincial assemblies, he would win entitlement only to complete the remaining term as president.