ISLAMABAD Oct 9: The ruling PML leadership seems to be happy about the public criticism of the National Reconciliation Ordinance, which has become controversial and appears to have boomeranged on Benazir Bhutto, on whose insistence it was promulgated one day before the presidential polls.
A stiff opposition, sources say, has come from senior leaders within the PPP who are under obligation not to speak to the media. But their anxiety is well known to the party chairperson. The exit from the party of former interior minister Naseerullah Khan Babar and former senator Qazi Anwar is being taken seriously by the party high command, the sources said.
However, they said, the negotiating team of Gen Musharraf would continue to engage the PPP leadership in the power-sharing formula, besides providing the PPP chairperson security on her return to the country on Oct 18. Talks on other constitutional issues would also continue till the announcement of election schedule, they added.
Leaders of the PPP are confident that the party leader will succeed in regaining the credibility she lost because of secrete talks with Gen Musharraf and getting indemnity against corruption cases.
Keeping these considerations in view, the government refrained from laying a piece of the NRO in the National Assembly on Tuesday when it met briefly. The lower house was prorogued before the ordinance could be laid.
The ruling party leaders expect the ordinance already challenged in the apex and high courts may be struck down by the Supreme Court.
PML president Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain had said the government was not bound to re-promulgate the NRO or bring another law in its place if it was struck down by the court.
However, Sher Afgan Niazi and Mohammad Ali Durrani insisted that it was a serious effort to put the polity on the path of national reconciliation.
Parliamentary sources said that since the law was most likely to be struck down by the apex court it was not suitable for the government to bring it to the National Assembly.
Meanwhile, MMA members in the Senate have sent two adjournment motions to debate the NRO and block its passage by the parliament.
A senior ruling party leader, who did not want to be named, said: “Those PML leaders who opposed the ordinance did not believe that the PPP chairperson will meet stiff opposition from the senior leadership within the party.”
The sources said the PML leadership was confident that the controversial ordinance would give political benefits to the party in the coming elections. The party leadership which had come under criticism after the promulgation of NRO is now feeling relieved.
A PML source said that the major concern was not that the ordinance would provide indemnity to Benazir Bhutto and her husband Asif Zardari against court cases, but the expected relief to bureaucrats and top officials who had looted the national exchequer but would go unpunished.
