ISLAMABAD, May 7: Leader of Opposition in the National Assembly Maulana Fazlur Rahman has said that by threatening to impose emergency Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz has accepted that his government has been weakened by massive movement against the presidential reference.

Speaking at a press conference in his parliament chamber on Monday, the Maulana said that Benazir Bhutto should give up the idea of striking a deal with the military rulers and unite with the opposition on a minimum agenda to launch a movement against Gen Pervez Musharraf.

He described the Supreme Court verdict of staying the Supreme Judicial Council’s proceedings as the triumph of lawyers, politicians and the civil society movement for the supremacy of law and the judicial system and announced support for lawyers’ ‘thanksgiving day’ on May 9.

He said that a meeting of the MMA supreme council on Tuesday would take a decision on ways of participating in the day’s programme.

He condemned the prime minister’s threat of imposing emergency and termed it a deliberate attempt to cause a stock market crash. He said there were no grounds for issuing threats for such a step. He said the prime minister’s rhetoric had caused a political upheaval and fuelled uncertainty. “He has wrongly quoted a constitutional provision at a wrong time.”

Replying to a question about Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry’s Punjab visit, he said the government should accept its mistake and publicly apologise to the nation for having created a crisis.

He said that it would be wrong to punish the people and derail the democratic order for follies that the government had committed on the judicial front.

The Maulana said that it would be wrong to say that the presidential reference had been filed at the behest of the prime minister because everyone knew that no major decision was taken without the consent and order of Gen Musharraf.

He asked the opposition to move forward to forge a united front as differences among them would benefit only the regime which was ‘falling apart’ from inside.

The MMA leader warned that the movement now led by lawyers and followed by the opposition would not be stopped by any means not even by slapping emergency.

He said that it would be better for the regime to realise that which way the wind was blowing and step down in favour of democracy.