30 October 2004	Saturday	15 Ramazan 1425

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ISLAMABAD, Oct 29: The government gave references from British parliamentary history to justify the uniform of President Gen Pervez Musharraf in the Senate on Friday.

The treasury and opposition members extensively used historical references in support and against the bill authorising the president to hold two offices beyond December 31.

Parliamentary Affairs Minister Sher Afgan Niazi said the British parliament has already set a precedence when it authorized Lord General Oliver Cromwell to remain a member of parliament and retain his army post.

Rebutting the opposition criticism of the government for bulldozing an unprecedented two offices bill through the National Assembly, Dr Niazi said history was full of examples of ex-militarymen including Gen Pinochet of Chile, Gen MacArthur of the United States and Gen Kenan Everan of Turkey who played an important role in reconstruction of their nations.

The minister cut his speech short as the opposition pointed out the quorum and the upper house was adjourned to meet on Saturday morning. Earlier, Peoples Party Parliamentarians' Nayyar Bokhari had said that Pakistan's parliament was, perhaps, the only one in the world which wanted to give powers to a 'dictator' to retain two offices.

Dr Abdullah Riar questioned the steps taken by Gen Musharraf during the past five years. He said Gen Musharraf had installed a third prime minister after getting rid of two others.

Demanding that President Musharraf should relinquish the post of the Chief of the Army Staff, Dr Riar said the senators should rise to the occasion as they had done earlier by blocking the proposed 15th Constitutional Amendment moved by Nawaz Sharif during his era and reject the dual offices bill.

Participating in the debate on the bill from the treasury side, two MQM senators said the party had taken a decision that the president could retain two offices. Senators Abida Saif and Nighat Mirza justified the necessity of uniform for the nation and MQM's stance on the issue.

Nighat Mirza said, those who benefited from the gloss of the stars and moon on a general's uniform in the past were now questioning the uniform of President Musharraf. Without naming the MMA and the PML-N, she said those who had benefited during the eras of Gen Ayub, Gen Yahya and Gen Zia were now against the uniform.

Reciting an Urdu couplet, Senator Nighat said the meanings of truth change with the expediency of the times. She said Islamization had been used as an excuse in the past to justify the military rules in the country.

While reading from a prepared text, Ms Nighat seemed to be contradicting the earlier stance taken by her colleagues from the treasury benches who had earlier used extensive references of Quran and Sunnah to justify the uniform of the president.