February 06, 2007	Tuesday	Muharram 17, 1428

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ISLAMABAD, Feb 5: The National Assembly begins a session on Wednesday in a belated start of a momentous parliamentary year clouded by opposition threats of mass resignations.

It was not immediately clear whether the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal will carry out or revoke its vow to quit its 64 seats in the 342-seat house to protest against the passage of a women’s rights bill in November.

Opposition sources said a final decision by the alliance’s apparently divided leaders was likely to be taken at a meeting of their Supreme Council in Lahore a day after the session’s start while a question mark remained whether MMA members would come to the opening sitting due at 3pm.

Other opposition parties, mainly grouped in the Alliance for Restoration of Democracy, have also threatened to resign from more than 70 of their seats if the present house is used to elect President Gen Pervez Musharraf for another term before it completes its five-year tenure on Nov 15.

The first sitting will be adjourned without conducting any business soon after its start to mourn the death of an MMA member of the house, Maulana Nasib Ali Shah from the North West Frontier Province’s Bannu district.

But opposition sources said there would likely be stormy proceedings from Wednesday whatever the MMA decision about the threat it made in November even before the house passed the Protection of Women (Criminal Laws Amendment) Bill – later becoming an Act after approval by the Senate and a presidential assent – designed to protect women from the misuse of some controversial Islamic Hudood ordinances.

There will be heated discussions also over other issues such as alleged “disappearances” of political activists blamed on security agencies, a recent spate of deadly suicide bombings, cuts in domestic petroleum prices seen by opposition as insufficient and the latest increase in the price of liquefied petroleum gas.

Tuesday’s session will be held exactly after 75 days since the house was prorogued on Nov 20, after carrying the debate over the women’s bill into the first four days of its fifth and last parliamentary year.

The house was then expected to be called again in early December for a formal start of the new parliamentary year and put the MMA threat to test.

But the second longest recess in the present assembly’s life of more than four years gave rise to speculations that it was manipulated by some circles in the ruling party with a soft corner for the MMA to let the alliance rethink about resigning and provide it a partial face-saving in the hope that other developments might overtake the issue.

But political sources said the issue was still alive, marked by clear differences between the seven-party alliance’s two main components – Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam being cool and the Jamaat-i-Islami being ardent about the idea – and could put the credibility of the religious parties to another test after they supported the government in the passage of the controversial 17th constitutional amendment in December 2003 to legitimise sweeping powers assumed by President Gen Musharraf.