ISLAMABAD, Oct 13: The government made a fresh appeal to opposition parties on Monday to end their boycott of parliamentary proceedings as one opposition alliance reported new hints from Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali for more talks to settle the LFO controversy.
Information and Broadcasting Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed called for an end to the protest boycott in a brief speech in the National Assembly after an opposition walkout from the lower house in continuation of its 11-month-old campaign against the controversial Legal Framework Order.
In what looked like a lack of coordination between them, members of the two main opposition groupings of the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy and the Muttahida Majlis-i- Amal staged separate walkouts from the National Assembly.
The MMA walked out at the start of the absence-plagued evening proceedings after a two-day recess while the ARD — absent from the house when MMA was there — did it at the fag-end of the sitting, which did little business except disposing of the question-hour in an opposition-less house and a call-attention notice on allegedly arbitrary dismissals of state employees.
An MMA spokesman said he did not know why the ARD parties did not turn up in the beginning of the sitting when proceedings were suspended twice for lack of quorum. An ARD spokesman said his alliance was holding a meeting of its parliamentary group hen the MMA walked out of the house.
MMA spokesman Liaqat Baloch said after the alliance walkout two prime ministerial aides had conveyed to him a message from Mr Jamali that he wanted to resume talks with MMA representatives over the LFO.
But he told reporters there was no indication when exactly such a meeting, which he said “is not our wish”, could be held.
The MMA had been dissatisfied with a previous package announced by the government after talks between the negotiators of the two sides last month while the ruling party had promised a response to MMA counter-proposals after the prime minister’s return from a 10-day visit to the United States that ended on Thursday.
Mr Baloch said both of Mr Jamali’s aides, Yahya Munawwar and Rana Nazir Ahmed, had told him the prime minister wanted “to have a contact (with the MMA) and a meeting”.
He said a decision would be taken in consultation with the six component Islamic parties of the alliance, whose previous talks with the government were boycotted by the ARD.
Mr Baloch said the MMA also planned to propose to ARD parties a change of tactics of anti-LFO protest in parliament so that the government should not take benefit of the opposition’s absence to get a parliamentary approval for sending troops to join a US-led stabilization force in Iraq.
He said opposition parties could resist any such government move if they remained inside parliament and protested against the LFO there instead of their usual walkouts after desk-thumping and slogan-chanting against the LFO and President Pervez Musharraf.
But Sheikh Rashid had a different ground for his appeal to opposition to take part in the proceedings, when he spoke after the day’s second walkout — by ARD parties.
“I ask them to end their boycott for the sake of democracy,” he said in remarks after some members on the treasury benches, including PML-Q chief whip and Labour and Manpower Minister Abdul Sattar Laleka, accused members of the People’s Party Parliamentarians (PPP) of forcing an unwilling colleague to walk out with them and wanted deputy speaker Sardar Mohammad Yaqub to register a first information report with police about the matter.
But the PPP member, Sher Mohammad Baloch, briefly returned to the house to condemn alleged dismissals in the Pakistan Steel Mills and later told reporters he had no dispute with his party’s protest strategy.
The information minister said opposition members could serve the interests of their constituencies and voters by taking part in the proceedings such as the question hour.
INDIAN WOMAN: MQM member Kunwar Khalid Yunus wanted Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat to explain reasons for the imprisonment of a 21-year-old Indian woman, Zakia Bibi, who was released last week on the orders of Prime Minister Jamali.
But there was no immediate explanation from the interior minister, who was present in the house, about the woman who Mr Yunus said was detained in 1995 when former prime minister Benazir Bhutto was in office.
Some heat was generated over the call-attention notice from MQM members Iqbal Mohammad Ali Khan, Nawab Mirza Advocate and Kunwar Khalid Yunus about what they called termination of services of government employees by the competent authority “just with a stroke of pen” under the Special Powers Ordinance 2000.
Parliamentary secretary for Establishment Division Ali Asjid Malhi denied that any dismissals were being made arbitrary and said the ordinance provided for a show-cause notice to the employees, inquiries, pleadings before a service tribunal and even an appeal to the Supreme Court.
But the sponsors of the notice appeared unconvinced and sought more protection to the employees of government departments and other state-run organizations.
