April 19, 2006	Wednesday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 20, 1427

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ISLAMABAD, April 18: The opposition in the National Assembly complained on Tuesday that Pakistan was without an acting president for several hours after President Pervez Musharraf left for Abu Dhabi on Monday, and sought a debate on what it called a violation of the constitution.

The issue was first raised during the lower house debate on inflation by Khwaja Mohammad Asif of PML-N who said nobody had taken over as acting president after the president’s departure for Abu Dhabi to watch an India-Pakistan cricket match set for Tuesday.

He pointed out that Senate chairman Mohammedmian Soomro, who should have automatically become acting president, was already on foreign tour and asked if National Assembly Speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain, who presided over the house in the morning, had received any intimation to stand in as required by the constitution.

Deputy speaker Sardar Mohammad Yaqub, who was in the chair at that time, sidestepped the issue and only asked the PML-N member to let the debate proceed.

There was no immediate response from the government either, even when Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz spent about 15 minutes in the house shortly after this matter cropped up.

Later in the afternoon, the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) delivered an adjournment motion to the National Assembly secretariat seeking a debate on the matter that it said caused a “grave concern” among the Pakistani people.

It was only in the afternoon that the Speaker had taken over as acting president for the first time during his present tenure.

In what appeared to be contrary to usual protocol, a press release issued from Prime Minister’s House said the acting president called on Mr Aziz at the prime minister’s chamber in the National Assembly and discussed with him “the overall political situation, the calendar of the ongoing session of the National Assembly and the functioning of parliament during the upcoming budget session”.

The MMA motion, on which the alliance is likely to seek a debate on Wednesday, said the Senate Chairman or in his absence the National Assembly Speaker should have become acting president after General Musharraf’s departure on Monday.

“But till about noon of April 18 there was no president of the country and thus a violation of the constitution has been committed... by keeping an important office vacant,” it said.