December 17, 2003	Wednesday	Shawwal 22, 1424

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ISLAMABAD, Dec 16: With the MMA deadline only 24 hours away the last ditch efforts to create a consensus between government and Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) leaders on the timing of bringing the proposed constitutional package to the National Assembly seem to be heading towards a failure as hectic meetings between the two sides well into the night on Tuesday had yielded no results till the filing of this report.

The MMA refused a proposal that the deadline of Thursday given by the alliance be postponed till the bill was finalised and presented in the National Assembly. The officials kept insisting that the deadline be withdrawn as a first step while the MMA kept demanding that the deadline be respected first.

The MMA team also made it clear to the government side that it was not prepared to give vote of confidence to Gen Pervez Musharraf as a trade-off for presentation of the constitutional package in parliament. They said they would go ahead with their planned mass movement, starting Thursday from Dera Ghazi Khan, if the package was not presented to parliament by Wednesday.

The ruling Pakistan Muslim League President Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and party’s constitutional expert Senator S.M.Zafar held a meeting with MMA’s deputy parliamentary leader Hafiz Hussain Ahmed and Liaquat Baloch in Islamabad to sort out some of the ambiguity that the MMA thought still existed on some points in the official draft package.

Earlier on Monday afternoon, Senator Zafar had flown into Peshawar to meet MMA Vice President Qazi Hussain Ahmed to discuss with him finalization of the package but apparently the meeting made no headway.

Qazi Hussain, according to sources, stuck to the alliance demand that the bill be presented to the National Assembly strictly on the lines agreed on Sept 6 and that the alliance would not agree to give confidence vote to the president in return.

It was gathered from the background interviews from both the government and the MMA sides that the draft amendment package was almost ready and likely to be handed over to the MMA any moment.

Talking to Dawn by telephone, Hafiz Hussain said: “We have made it clear to the government team in today’s and last evening’s meetings that nothing short of Sept 6 draft agreed upon between the two sides will be accepted.”

He said the issue of 63(1)d dealing with holding of government and public offices by one person also came under discussion whereas we stressed on the agreed one-year extension in upper age limit for superior courts judges while government insisted that the “extension may be allowed up to two years”.

Hafiz Hussain said the MMA’s supreme council would meet at Multan on Wednesday evening according to the programme and review the planned countrywide protest campaign.

He complained that the administration of Multan was being more loyal than the king himself and had threatened the MMA workers ahead of the crucial supreme council meeting “but we are not going to be deterred by such tactics”.

He took strong exception to the threats of arrests allegedly hurled by PML President Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and termed it a deliberate and provocative utterance.