Jamali presides over PML meeting of factions today
By Ahmed Hassan
ISLAMABAD May 9: Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali will preside over a meeting of the five PML faction heads at the Prime Minister's House on Monday.
The meeting will discuss and sort out some thorny issues before holding general council meeting of these factions on Tuesday to announce their dissolution and unification.
The issue of Mr Jamali's own candidature for the new PML's secretary-general will also figure in the discussion though the PML president, Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, appears to have won the support of some of the PML-Q members against the prime minister in the party's parliamentary meeting at Lahore on Sunday, sources said.
The Monday meeting is also expected to discuss and create a consensus on the mechanism for the merger of the National Alliance led by Sardar Farooq Ahmed Leghari. Besides, the meeting will also address the reservations of Functional League about election of party office-bearers after the dissolution of the respective party general councils.
According to the chief organizer of PML-F, Kunwar Qutbuddin, the meeting, besides taking decisions on the distribution of party portfolios, would also deliberate on organizational issues including logistics of the delegates participating in joint general councils' meeting.
Meanwhile, the PML-Q vice-president, Syed Kabir Ali Wasti, had claimed that the hardcore party workers were opposed to the holding of joint general councils' meeting on May 12 till the settlement of some controversial issues, including the demand of some league factions for important party portfolios in return for their joining the unified PML.
Mr Wasti claimed that the party workers had many reservations against some of the decisions taken by the faction leaders during the May 2 and 3 meetings and they wanted revision of these decisions before implementation of the party unification plan.
Another party leader was of the view that the prime minister's position would be damaged if the majority of the general council rejected his candidature. He said the prime minister being the chief executive was a busy man and therefore, would have very little time to fulfil the onerous responsibilities of the secretary-general of the party.
So far as the decision of amending Political Parties Ordinance to allow the provincial party presidents retaining both the public and political offices was concerned, he said the respective chief ministers would be able to organize the party in a better way than those holding no public office.
The issue, the sources said, had also figured in Chaudhry Shujaat's meeting with President Gen Pervez Musharraf the other day as the latter too had expressed his desire that the premier would accept the majority party decision.
The president, it was reported, also asked Mr Jamali in his one on one meeting with the prime minister not to jump in the race for a party office which could weaken the unity of the unified PML. The president desired that the efforts aimed at strengthening and broadening the base of the PML must be continued with full zeal.
The PML-Q secretary-general, Salim Saifullah Khan, who is expected to retain his office after league factions unification, said no party office could be filled by nomination under the provisions of PPO and hence anyone desirous of getting any office, including the prime minister, would have to pass through the election process.
Those in the party who belong to Chaudhry Shujaat's camp hope that Mr Jamali, in the face of stiff resistance from the 'majority' of party leaders, would withdraw his candidature for the party secretary-general's office in the meeting on May 12 or even before that.
