10 September 2004	Friday	24 Rajab 1425

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ISLAMABAD, Sept 9: Opposition parties are likely to raise angry voices on Friday at the start of the first regular National Assembly session after Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz took office about two weeks ago.

The issues opposition plans to raise during the session, range from President Pervez Musharraf's military office to a large new cabinet and anti-militant operations in the tribal region bordering Afghanistan.

The session comes 13 days after the ruling coalition gave Mr Aziz a mandatory vote of confidence at a special meeting of the house on August 28 a day after electing him as the country's third prime minister in less than two years and second in less than two months.

Opposition parties boycotted both the election and the vote of confidence in protest against speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain's refusal to call to the house their jailed candidate and Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy (ARD) president Javed Hashmi for what would have been only a symbolic contest against Mr Aziz.

Despite the anger of the opposition parties about the process of the former finance minister's election first to the National Assembly and then as prime minister, Mr Aziz has promised seek peace them.

The desire expressed by the prime minister in statements and newspaper interviews since his election to try for a national consensus on major issues has spurred speculation that he may use the National Assembly to make a gesture to soothe the opposition camp, where tensions have heightened recently by a renewed controversy over whether Gen Musharraf should give up his office of the Chief of Army Staff by the constitutional deadline of December 31.

A new bitterness to the controversy has been added by statements from some important figures in the ruling coalition demanding that the president retain the army uniform for five to 10 years more and the president's own statement that 96 per cent of the Pakistani people want him not to remove it.

Despite their own mutual differences over the parliamentary passage in December of the Constitution (17th Amendment) Bill that allowed the president to remain the army chief until December 31, both the ARD and the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) have given notices to the National Assembly secretariat of privilege or adjournment motions to raise the issue.

Political sources said the statements by the president and ruling coalition leaders like Pakistan Muslim League president Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and Punjab province Chief Minister Chaudhry Pervez Elahi over the issue of uniform could be meant for testing the water before Gen Musharraf takes a promised decision of his own in December.

The opposition parties will challenge reported view of unspecified coalition legal experts that the 17th Amendment perhaps does not restrain the president to keep both the present offices beyond Dec 31, opposition sources said.

Because of their declared lack of confidence in the superior judiciary, there is little likelihood of the opposition parties going to court if the president finally decides not to give up army uniform and will like to do the maximum to agitate the matter inside parliament and mobilise public opinion through other means.

The other issues for which the opposition has given notice for a debate include the record large size of the new cabinet formed by Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, who says he has taken about twice as many ministers than his two predecessors had only to improve the efficiency of government departments.

The opposition is likely to attack what it perceives as an additional burden on the national exchequer, 33 full ministers, 26 ministers of state and three advisers will mean more mouths to defend the prime minister and government policies.

Although no formal notice had been yet sent to the assembly secretariat about the matter until Thursday, parliamentary sources said political members, particularly those of the MMA, were likely to use their usual vehicle of points of order to agitate about a military operation in the South Waziristan early in the day in which, according to an official account, 50 militants were killed.

PML members could be seen more vigorous than before in defending their government after their party got much bigger representation in the new cabinet than during about 19 months of former prime ministers Zafarullah Khan Jamali and during the brief transitional premiership of Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain.

Parliamentary sources said the assembly would remain in session for about a month and possibly adjourn before the start of the fasting month of Ramazan in mid-October, so it could complete or nearly complete the remaining 34 days of a mandatory calendar of business before the end of its parliamentary year on November 12. With intervals, the assembly has so far been in session for 96 days out of the mandatory minimum of 130 days.

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