October 27, 2003	Monday	Sha’aban 30, 1424

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ISLAMABAD, Oct 26: The government-opposition talks on the Legal Framework Order are likely to resume after Ramazan.

An official who is privy to the LFO talks told Dawn that no progress on the issue was possible during Ramazan, and the government would respond to the MMA clarifications after Eid.

The official said at present the MMA was least interested in the constitutional issue. It is understood that the alliance leaders would observe Ramazan in their own native towns and would not have much time for political activities during the holy month.

Meanwhile, informed sources said the PML-Q was under intense pressure from its own members who wanted party leadership to cut to size its coalition partner, People’s Party Patriots. Many PML-Q back benchers feel the Patriots are leading rather than following the majority party in the coalition.

A meeting of the ruling parliamentary parties scheduled to be held on Monday (today) with the prime minister in the chair is said to have been especially called to look into these complaints.

Insiders attribute the quorum problem in the National Assembly to the growing disenchantment among the PML-Q MNAs who, they said, felt that they had been short-changed while the Patriots were being accorded all kinds of ‘rewards’ for their support to the prime minister.

Referring to the official explanation that quorum could not be maintained in the National Assembly because scores of MNAs had gone on foreign tours, the insiders said in the first place these tours were offered to the disgruntled MNAs as a bribe to keep them in good humour and secondly, all of them were sent out at the same time instead of staggering these visits in view of the quorum problem.

Some PML-Q ministers too were said to be highly piqued at the way the prime minister was pampering the Patriot ministers even to the extent of allowing them to interfere in other ministries’ affairs.

A Patriot minister is said to have got transferred three low-level employees of a corporation which functions under a ministry ran by a PML-Q minister just because these three had supported the Patriots minister’s rival in the last elections. Interestingly, the rival was a PML-Q candidate.

The loser PML-Q candidate is now said to have threatened to leave the party unless the transfers were taken back.