ISLAMABAD, Oct 11: A bill allowing President Pervez Musharraf to continue holding the post of army chief beyond Dec 31, 2004, was tabled in the dying moments of the National Assembly's session on Monday in what was seen as a calculated move.
It will be a private members' day on Tuesday unless the house business is suspended by a majority vote. The bill, therefore, will be presented for a debate on Wednesday.
The move sparked angry protests by the combined opposition whose members, shouting slogans, surrounded the speaker's rostrum and tore the bill's copies. Leaders of the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy (ARD) and the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal later addressed a joint press conference in which they announced they would launch an anti-Musharraf movement after Ramazan.
"The general has broken his promise of shedding his uniform by Dec 31 he had made under the MMA-government accord and now we will not wait for that date and make sure he succumbs to people's pressure," thundered the opposition.
The tabling of the bill, which was earlier in the day approved by the house standing committee on law and justice, was not included in the order of the day distributed in the house.
Speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain, after sounding about adjourning the house to give time to opposition's adjournment motions, asked committee chairman Rai Mansab Ali Khan to table the committee report in the closing moments.
As soon as he started reciting a few lines from the report, the opposition came out of their seats and rushed to the speaker's rostrum to register their protest. They tore the bill's copies to pieces and trampled them underfoot.
All the parliamentary leaders of opposition groups led from the front in the protest. MMA's Qazi Hussain Ahmed was more vocal than others in slogan chanting. The opposition members sang in chorus: "Go Musharraf, go" and "Lathi, goli ki sarkar naheen chalay gee".
Speaker Amir Hussain adjourned the house till Tuesday morning when he saw no chance of the house gaining order. The opposition appeared united as against Friday when the bill was introduced and referred to the house committee. It had a full strength all through the proceedings, unlike the treasury benches who lacked quorum.
Leader of the opposition Maulana Fazlur Rahman had left the house apparently seeing the last moments of the proceedings as did a number of journalists covering the press gallery.
ARD chairman Makhdoom Amin Fahim was not present in the house. Later, speaking at a joint news conference Qazi Hussain Ahmed, Liaqat Baloch and Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Haideri of MMA, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, Aitzaz Ahsan, Shah Mehmood Qureshi and Raja Parvez Ashraf of ARD announced a countrywide movement against Gen Musharraf.
Qazi Hussain Ahmed said: "Gen Musharraf in army chief's uniform and parliament cannot go together and either of the two will have to be sacrificed after Ramazan." The leaders said they will put up resistance against the bill on the floor of the house and mobilize public opinion by bringing people to the streets.
Earlier, Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Dr Sher Afgan Khan Niazi came under fire for his remarks seen as hurting the sensibilities of Sindh's people. Former prime minister Zafarullah Jamali bailed him out by seeking an unqualified apology on his behalf.
A large number of opposition members had submitted two privilege motions against the minister, terming the language he had used against Sindhis 'derogatory'. They sought his apology.
The speaker engaged the opposition in arguments before allowing the privilege motion. He allowed a number of members to speak on the admissibility of the motion by saying that under the rules the copies of privilege motions should have been given to his secretariat in advance.
At one point, he asked leader of the opposition to speak on the adjournment motion which the opposition wanted to move about terrorist incidents taking place in the country.
Maulana Fazl, however, supported the opposition leaders led by MNAs from Sindh that the privilege motion should be admitted first. This led to a lengthy debate which culminated in the speaker admitting the motion.
The movers alleged that the minister in his press conference had called Sindhis "ignorant, foolish, and mentally deranged for opposing the construction of Kalabagh dam."
The minister denied having used bad language, saying only one Sindhi-language newspaper had misquoted him. He said what he had said was extensively reported by all the English and Urdu dailies, and none had mentioned anything about the use of derogatory language.
He said when he came to know of this mis reporting, he immediately issued a rebuttal which was published in the newspaper concerned the next day. A number of PPP Parliamentarian members demanded that the house be adjourned to give time to the minister to return with a copy of the said rebuttal. They claimed that no rebuttal was published by the paper and if there was any the minister should prove it.
