ISLAMABAD, June 11: The Alliance for Restoration of Democracy and the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal have agreed in principle to enhance their cooperation in the upper house of parliament and to nominate a consensus candidate for the leader of opposition.
The two sides also agreed on distribution of Senate committees’ chairmanships and constituting a shadow cabinet comprising members from both the houses.
ARD chairman Makhdoom Amin Fahim, along with People’s Party Parliamentarians leaders Raja Parvaiz Ashraf, Mian Raza Rabbani and Khurshid Shah, held a meeting with MMA secretary-general Maulana Fazlur Rahman and deputy parliamentary leader Hafiz Hussain Ahmad at the latter’s residence on Sunday.
The leaders of the two alliances will meet again on Monday to discuss the Charter of Democracy signed between the PPP and the Pakistan Muslim League-N to reach at a conclusion whether it could become basis for their working together for restoration of democracy in the country.
The decisions taken at the meeting will formally be announced after the Monday meeting in which MMA president Qazi Hussain Ahmad, Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaf chairman Imran Khan and PML-N leaders will also participate.
Talking to Dawn on Sunday, Hafiz Hussain Ahmad said the meeting had been planned to enhance cooperation between the two major opposition alliances and other parties in the National Assembly and Senate.
He said though the MMA chief had been informed about the talks, it had, however, been decided to delay the formal announcement of the decisions till he returned to the federal capital.
It was decided that a shadow cabinet would be formed from both the houses and opposition legislators would be assigned duties of vigilance on various ministries and to coordinate in bringing motions and putting questions about them.
The meeting decided in principle to field Mian Raza Rabbani as the consensus candidate for the opposition leader and to work out a formula to distribute 10 chairmanships of the house committees recently offered by the government to the opposition.
It was also decided that if the government made a similar offer in the National Assembly, the two alliances would formulate a distribution formula with consensus.
Mr Ahmad said “we welcome the decision of offering house committee chairmanships to the opposition in Senate” but regretted that the same was not done in case of the National Assembly. In democratic countries, he said, the chairman of the Public Account Committees was also appointed from the opposition.
